Nine days The race to save Martin Luther King Jr.'s life and win the 1960 election

A trumped-up traffic case endangered Martin Luther King Jr. and transformed America, according to this probing if sometimes overwrought study. Father and son journalists Stephen and Paul Kendrick (Douglass and Lincoln) explore an October 1960 episode in which the civil rights activist was jailed for leading antisegregation sit-ins in Atlanta and then sentenced to four months in Reidsville State Prison for driving without a Georgia license. (He had an Alabama license.) His incarceration sparked an uproar and pleas for presidential candidates John Kennedy and Richard Nixon to intervene. According to the authors, Kennedy's actions, including a sympathy call to King's wife and quiet lobbying of Georgia politicians to release King, were made out of pragmatic considerations rather than idealistic principles, yet they won him crucial Black votes. Meanwhile, Nixon courted Southern whites by avoiding the issue. The Kendricks argue cogently that the episode inaugurated the modern racial divide between Democrats and Republicans, though they overhype the unlikely possibility that King might have been assassinated at Reidsville. Still, King is shown in an unusually intimate and human light--hesitant, fearful, unhappily girding himself for the ordeal of prison. The result is a revealing take on a watershed moment in American politics and in King's personal journey. (Jan.)

Of the many famous events in the life of Martin Luther King Jr., the nine days discussed here are likely some of the most momentous ones. The talented father and son author duo behind Nine Days do an excellent job of weaving this history into a compelling narrative that almost reads like fiction. They paint a vivid and disturbing picture of life for Black Americans in the deep South in the early 1960s. The nine days in question begin with a lunch counter protest at an Atlanta department store, and are compounded by Dr. King's previous arrest for driving with an out-of-state driver's license. The danger to Dr. King was so great that John F. Kennedy was asked to intervene, late in the closely contested 1960 presidential election. Bill Andrew Quinn delivers a compelling narration for the audiobook. The narrative's pace is just right, and is certain to hold listeners' interest throughout the volume. VERDICT Strongly recommended for all public libraries.--Gretchen Pruett, New Braunfels P.L., TX