Nine Days

The Race to Save Martin Luther King Jr.'s Life and Win the 1960 Election

By: Paul Kendrick, Stephen Kendrick

Narrated by: Bill Andrew Quinn

Less than three weeks before the 1960 presidential election, 31-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.

©2021 Stephen Kendrick and Paul Kendrick (P)2021 Tantor

The real reason JFK beat Nixon?

This is a surprising chronology of a major October 1960 event that prevented MLK from dying in a violent state penitentiary. Also, the authors imply, this event may have pushed JFK past Nixon in the final weeks of the presidential campaign. Acclaimed voice actor Bill Andrew Quinn narrates an amazing, behind-the-scene story of how unknown campaign and party officials, black and white, Democrat and Republican, wrestled with how to protect King, and, maybe, win the election as well. The authors turned years of interviews, articles, editorials, and other research into a cohesive political thriller. Shouldn't this be a major motion picture?

How to thread the needle on a policy change

A great book about a lesser known event and its even less known long term implications. In the lead up to the 1960 election, Martin Luther King was sent to prison for a traffic violation that normally would not redult in a prison term. There was fear for his safety and how a prison murder of MLK may effect the election. At the time Democrats were still seen as the party for southern white segregationists and the Republicans more favorable to Black voters. The challenge faced by Nixon and Kennedy was how to react to the arrest and not alienate a key element of their voting base, The book shows how Kennedy threaded that needle for the 1960 election well and Nixon did not and in the long term how the response can be seen as a moment in the overall shift of black voters into the Democrats base and white southerners into the Republican base. The reader was excellent to listen to

Great story though

The narrator is clearly unfamiliar with Atlanta and how to pronounce DeKalb county. The book itself was excellent!

a fascinating, detailed, blow-by-blow approach

This book exposes the detailed truths behind the superficially well-known imprisonment of MLK in the midst of the last days of the 1960 presidential election. This is a "journalistic" book, rather than a ponderous analytical/scholarly book. A journalistic approach is perfectly appropriate to the topic. I finished listening to it in 3 long sittings, the time passed quickly. Very worthy book, well written & well narrated.

Like a thriller

This book is a first-rate cliff-hanger, with suspense, action, last-minute saves, all with now- familiar characters in a little-known episode that still resonates today. It would make a great movie. Don't miss this. It was a hair-raising era, full of problems we thought we could solve in a decade; this will throw light on why we are still struggling with them today. You will enjoy this.