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

“[An] inspiring book about the events leading up to the 1960 election, from Dr. King’s imprisonment to student activism in Atlanta to JFK’s campaign. It’s a story we can all learn from—a story of overlooked heroes and the power each of us has to create change.” —Barack ObamaOne of O, The Oprah Magazine’s best books of February 2021The authors of Douglass and Lincoln present fully for the first time the story of Martin Luther King Jr.’s imprisonment in the days leading up to the 1960 presidential election and the efforts of three of John F. Kennedy’s civil rights staffers who went rogue to free him—a move that changed the face of the Democratic Party and propelled Kennedy to the White House.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 ever spent in jail, and the time when King’s family most feared for his life.A previous $