Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley door pickup 10am - 7pm 3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611

  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
Redemption: Martin Luther King Jr.'s Last 31 Hours

Redemption: Martin Luther King Jr.'s Last 31 Hours

Rosenbloom, Joseph

Hardcover

Biographies General20th Century United States HistoryGeneral Racism & Ethnic Studies

Publisher Price: $24.95

ISBN10: 0807083380
ISBN13: 9780807083383
Publisher: Beacon Press
Published: Mar 27 2018
Pages: 216
Weight: 1.00
Height: 0.90 Width: 6.30 Depth: 9.10
Language: English
An immersive, humanizing, and demystifying look at the final hours of Martin Luther King, Jr.'s life as he seeks to revive the non-violent civil rights movement and push to end poverty in America (Charles Blow, New York Times).

King comes to life in death--a courage ever so inspiring. --Ibram X. Kendi, author of Stamped from the Beginning

At 10:33 a.m. on April 3, 1968, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., landed in Memphis on a flight from Atlanta. A march that he had led in Memphis six days earlier to support striking garbage workers had turned into a riot, and King was returning to prove that he could lead a violence-free protest.

King's reputation as a credible, non-violent leader of the civil rights movement was in jeopardy just as he was launching the Poor Peoples Campaign. He was calling for massive civil disobedience in the nation's capital to pressure lawmakers to enact sweeping anti-poverty legislation. But King didn't live long enough to lead the protest. He was fatally shot at 6:01 p.m. on April 4 in Memphis.

Redemption is an intimate look at the last thirty-one hours and twenty-eight minutes of King's life. King was exhausted from a brutal speaking schedule. He was being denounced in the press and by political leaders as an agent of violence. He was facing dissent even within the civil rights movement and among his own staff at the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. In Memphis, a federal court injunction was barring him from marching. As threats against King mounted, he feared an imminent, violent death. The risks were enormous, the pressure intense.

On the stormy night of April 3, King gathered the strength to speak at a rally on behalf of sanitation workers. The Mountaintop Speech, an eloquent and passionate appeal for workers' rights and economic justice, exhibited his oratorical mastery at its finest.

Redemption draws on dozens of interviews by the author with people who were immersed in the Memphis events, features recently released documents from Atlanta archives, and includes compelling photos. The fresh material reveals untold facets of the story including a never-before-reported lapse by the Memphis Police Department to provide security for King. It unveils financial and logistical dilemmas, and recounts the emotional and marital pressures that were bedeviling King. Also revealed is what his assassin, James Earl Ray, was doing in Memphis during the same time and how a series of extraordinary breaks enabled Ray to construct a sniper's nest and shoot King.

Also in

Biographies General

View All