Less than three weeks before the 1960 presidential election, 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 had ever spent in jail—and the time that King's family most feared for his life. For John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon, this pivotal moment in the civil rights movement could either make or break the race for the presidency. Here the authors of Douglass and Lincoln chronicle how a small group of influential figures worked the behind the scenes to save King and tilt the election in JFK's favor.