The Race to Save Martin Luther King Jr.'s Life: 9 Days in the 1960 Election

"An inspiring eBook detailing the events leading up to the historic 1960 election, from Dr. King's imprisonment and student activism in Atlanta to JFK's campaign. It is a powerful narrative of forgotten heroes and the impact each of us holds to drive change." - Barack Obama

In this captivating New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice selection and one of 2021's best books by Ojournal , the authors of "Douglass and Lincoln" share the untold story of Martin Luther King, Jr.'s imprisonment in the days leading up to the pivotal 1960 presidential election. Delving into the bold actions of three of John F. Kennedy's civil rights aides who broke conventions to secure King's release, this move not only reshaped the Democratic Party but also played a crucial role in Kennedy's journey to the White House.

Just under three weeks before the 1960 presidential election, civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr., aged thirty-one, was arrested during a sit-in at Wealthy’s Department Store in Atlanta. This marked King’s first night behind bars, causing great concern for his safety among family members.

An earlier, minor site visitors ticket served as a pretext for holding King locked up, and later for a harrowing nighttime switch to Reidsville, the infamous Georgia state jail the place Black inmates labored on chain gangs overseen by violent white guards. Whereas King’s imprisonment was decried as an ethical scandal in some quarters and celebrated in others, for the 2 presidential candidates―John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon―it was the final word October shock: an rising and controversial civil rights chief was languishing behind bars, and the 2 campaigns raced to determine whether or not, and the way, to reply.

Stephen and Paul Kendrick’s 9 Days tells the unbelievable story of what occurred subsequent. In 1960, the Civil Rights Motion was rising more and more ingenious and energized whereas white politicians favored the corrosive ways of silence and stalling―however an audacious staff within the Kennedy marketing campaign’s Civil Rights Part (CRS) determined to behave. In an election when Black voters appeared poised to separate their votes between the candidates, the CRS satisfied Kennedy to agitate for King’s launch, generally even going behind his again of their quest to safe his freedom. Over the course of 9 extraordinary October days, the leaders of the CRS―pioneering Black journalist Louis Martin, future Pennsylvania senator Harris Wofford, and Sargent Shriver, the founding father of the Peace Corps―labored to tilt a decent election in Kennedy’s favor and convey a couple of revolution in occasion affiliation whose penalties are nonetheless integral to the observe of politics immediately.

Based mostly on contemporary interviews, newspaper accounts, and intensive archival analysis, 9 Days is the primary full recounting of an occasion that modified the course of one of many closest elections in American historical past. Way more than a political thriller, it is usually the story of the primary time King refused bail and got here to phrases with the damaging course of his mission to alter a nation. Without delay a narrative of electoral machinations, ethical braveness, and, finally, the triumph of a future president’s higher angels, 9 Days is a gripping story with vital classes for our personal time.