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It was fast then, in and
out the same day but still not pleasant and as a Black man
in 1960, the prospect of an entire night there was
loathsome. So when a group of students in Atlanta asked King
to help integrate restaurants in one of the city's largest
department stores, he understood the sacrifice and he prayed
on it first.
In the end, he stood with
the students and his worst fears came true.
Their jail sentence was
short and while they were kept mostly together, King was not
among the last of the students released three days later.
His sentence: four months' hard labor due to a driver's
license issue he thought had been taken care of, the spring
prior.
He was moved to another
jail, and then another, each farther away from his family
and further endangering his life.
Some time before, King had
reached out to the two 1960 Presidential candidates, asking
them to put Civil Rights at the forefront of their agendas.
He thought he knew who would be most likely to help: King
had met Richard Nixon, and he genuinely liked Nixon. He had
struggled to arrange time with John Kennedy, however.
That summer, the Kennedy
camp itself struggled. JFK's campaign staff understood, with
the help of Louis Martin, a respected Black newspaperman,
that the candidate who attracted "Negro" voters would win
the White House and Nixon was besting them. Then suddenly,
there was King, sitting in jail days before the election.
At the urging of his
staff, Kennedy picked up the phone and made a call...
Two of them, as a matter
of fact – JFK made two phone calls that may have
changed the outcome of the 1960 election and perhaps the
course of history. In a story that spreads forward and back
and sets a few facts straight, Nine Days tells about
those calls, King's jail-time and how they are forever
linked.
But wait: did Nixon and
Kennedy both seem to drag their feet on King's release?
Authors Stephen Kendrick and Paul Kendrick answer that
question in a peek at 1960s politics and society that's
fascinating but also frustrating to read, content-wise.
Kendrick and Kendrick don't let that feeling linger, though:
inside the tale of King and Kennedy is the story of a man
whose wisdom, savvy, and his reputation with Black
newspapers altered the election in a way that, as it's told,
feels like the cheer-worthy last ten minutes of a truly
great movie.
Though its focus is small,
Nine Days is a gigantic tale that you won't want to
stop reading once you've started it. Really, this is the
kind of book you can't help but love.
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