Overview

Less than three weeks before the 1960 presidential election, thirty-one-year-old Martin Luther King, Jr. was arrested at a sit-in at Rich's Department Store in Atlanta. That day would lead to the first night King had ever spent in jail--and the time that King's family most feared for his life. While King's imprisonment was decried as a moral scandal in some quarters and celebrated in others, for the two presidential candidates--John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon--it was the ultimate October surprise: an emerging and controversial civil rights leader was languishing behind bars, and the two campaigns raced to decide whether, and how, to respond. Based on fresh interviews, newspaper accounts, and extensive archival research, Nine Days is the first full recounting of an event that changed the course of one of the closest elections in American history. Much more than a political thriller, it is also the story of the first time King refused bail and came to terms with the dangerous course of his mission to change a nation. At once a story of electoral machinations, moral courage, and, ultimately, the triumph of a future president's better angels, Nine Days is a gripping tale with important lessons for our own time.

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9781665191760

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Reviews

The story of how the arrest of Martin Luther King Jr. in Georgia led to a telephone call that may have changed the direction of American politics. -- New York Times Book Review You can't fully understand the Civil Rights Movement without knowing this story. Sometimes a lot happens in a short time. Such was the case in 1960 with John Kennedy and Dr. Martin Luther King. What happened in those nine days showed courage and conviction from both men as well as from countless others who put their lives on the line for their ideals and now this well researched and written book tells us all. -- Senator Bill Bradley

Steady-voiced Bill Andrew Quinn narrates this in-depth reporting on a moment in history like a newscaster--he is clear, concise, accentless, and engaged...Quinn uses a subtle shift in accent for the Kennedys and an increase in pitch for Coretta Scott King. Throughout, the authors report on the actions, motives, and dreams of major figures in this period of the Civil Rights movement. -- AudioFile The story of how the arrest of Martin Luther King Jr. in Georgia led to a telephone call that may have changed the direction of American politics. -- New York Times Book Review You can't fully understand the Civil Rights Movement without knowing this story. Sometimes a lot happens in a short time. Such was the case in 1960 with John Kennedy and Dr. Martin Luther King. What happened in those nine days showed courage and conviction from both men as well as from countless others who put their lives on the line for their ideals and now this well researched and written book tells us all. -- Senator Bill Bradley

Author Information

Stephen Kendrick is the author of Holy Clues: The Gospel According to Sherlock Holmes and Night Watch. His work has appeared in the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Boston Globe, the Hartford Courant, American Heritage, Huffington Post, and Utne Reader. He has coauthored with Paul Kendrick Douglass and Lincoln: How a Revolutionary Black Leader and a Reluctant Liberator Struggled to End Slavery and Save the Union and Sarah's Long Walk: The Free Blacks of Boston and How Their Struggle for Equality Changed America. Paul Kendrick is a writer whose work has appeared in the New York Times, the Washington Post, USA Today, American Heritage, Talking Points Memo, and Huffington Post. He has coauthored with Stephen Kendrick Douglass and Lincoln: How a Revolutionary Black Leader and a Reluctant Liberator Struggled to End Slavery and Save the Union and Sarah's Long Walk: The Free Blacks of Boston and How Their Struggle for Equality Changed America. Bill Andrew Quinn is a veteran in the voice-over world. In addition to hundreds of commercials and audiobooks, his many credits include work on The Sopranos, The Montel Williams Show, and Showtime at the Apollo, as well as characters for Grand Theft Auto IV and other video games. Totinos, Corona, Lincoln-Mercury, and McDonald's are among his many television campaign clients.

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