Cooke's appointment came as a surprise; likely contenders for the post included Fulton J. Sheen, a television personality and Bishop of Rochester; and Archbishop Maguire, who had been Spellman's coadjutor but did not hold the right to succession [REF].
That same day, Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee, leading to a nationwide wave of riots in more than 100 cities.