Nine Days

It’s 1960 and the crossroads between a $25 traffic ticket, a Civil Rights sit in, and a presidential election.  One arrest will bring the famed Kennedy’s of Camelot together with one of the most well-known ministers in the South in a dramatic way.  Set in the city of Atlanta, we are introduced to a list of infamous people who came together to free Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. from a South Georgia work camp after a misunderstanding over a probation condition from a previous arrest.  Nine Days follows Dr. King and the Kennedy campaign from the events leading to the election and the sit in arrests to the nine days Dr. King spent behind bars.

Stephen and Paul Kendrick weave the politics of the 1960 election effortlessly into the storyline of King’s arrest and transfer.  This book is about the courage of those in both worlds to stand up to an unjust legal system.  The Kendrick father/son team make the fear palpable in each scene – fear for King’s life, fear for the loss of the election, and fear of negative public perception.  This book also details a scary moment in King’s life, being whisked away in the middle of the night from the metro Atlanta county jail to a country work camp in the back of a police cruiser next to a German Shepherd – a move ultimately made to intimidate and belittle King.

I give Nine Days 4 out of 5 stars.  This book recounts the historical events in a way that brings them to life and presents them for the first time to most readers – this is not material typically covered in history textbooks.  Having spent my entire life in the metro area, many of the locations mentioned in the book are familiar – as an outside sales rep, downtown Atlanta and Dekalb County were in my everyday travels.  Listening to this audio book, I can picture King and the students at the sit in counter, and the legal hearings at the courthouse.  There were several moments that felt slow paced and bogged down with details, but that is to be expected with books where so much history must be communicated to properly build the back story.

I recommend this novel to any reader and feel this should be required reading in American History courses.  I knew of King’s arrest, and of the election’s efforts to focus on Civil Rights, but did not understand how the two connected, or the details of King’s detainment in jail.  The language and topics covered in this book are appropriate for any history story.  This book is very well written and researched.

I chose Nine Days as my read in honor of Martin Luther King, Jr Day.  The older Kendrick is well-known for his work in Christian pop culture as the writer and producer of several Christian movies and books along with his brother Alex.  The younger Kendrick is well known for his work documenting and promoting Civil Rights as the President of George Washington University’s NAACP chapter and as the writer behind historic non-fiction books like Sarah’s Long Walk and Douglass and Lincoln.

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What I’m reading

• Current print book: Alexander Hamilton, Ron Chernow
• Current audio book: China Rich Girlfriend, Kevin Kwan
• Book I’m most looking forward to: Wild Dances, William Lee Adams