"Masterfully researched and beautifully written, One Week in America is . . . an important piece of history full of larger-than-life characters and unlikely heroes." —Jonathan Eig, author of Ali: A LifeThe major players in this story are names that just about every American has heard of: Ralph Ellison, Martin Luther King Jr., Norman Mailer, Lyndon B. Johnson, Joseph Heller, Kurt Vonnegut, William F. Buckley Jr.For one chaotic week in 1968, ...

2018 and 2019 Washington State Book Award Finalist (Biography/Memoir) • Excerpted in The Atlantic and Politico • TIME Magazine – One of 6 Books to Read in Honor of the 50th Anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.'s DeathMartin Luther King Jr. was a cautious nineteen-year-old rookie preacher when he left Atlanta, Georgia, to attend divinity school up north. At Crozer Theological Seminary, King, or "ML" back then, immediately found himself surrounded by a white staff an...

A Kirkus Reviews Best Nonfiction Book of 2024A Spectator Best Book of the YearFinalist for the 2025 ASALH Book PrizeDrawing upon interviews, correspondence, and nearly 2000 pages of never-before-used prison records, Malcolm Before X is the definitive examination of the prison years of civil rights icon Malcolm X.In February 1946, when 20-year-old Malcolm Little was sentenced to eight...

Martin Luther King Jr. was a cautious nineteen-year-old rookie preacher when he left Atlanta, Georgia to attend seminary up north. Immediately at Crozer Theological Seminary, King, or 'ML' back then, found that he was surrounded by a white staff and white professors. Even his dorm room had once been used by wounded Confederate soldiers during the Civil War. His fellow seminarians were almost all older; soldiers who'd fought in World War II, pacifists who'd chosen to resist fighting. Young ...

In February 1946, when twenty-year-old Malcolm Little was sentenced to eight to ten years in a maximum-security prison, he was a petty criminal and street hustler in Boston. By the time he was paroled in August 1952, he had transformed into a voracious reader, joined the Black Muslims, and was poised to become Malcolm X, one of the most prominent and important intellectuals of the civil rights era. While scholars and commentators have exhaustively detailed, analyzed, and debated Malcolm X'...