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You Have to Be Prepared to Die Before You Can Begin to Live: Ten Weeks in Birmingham That Changed America Audiobook
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Publisher Description
This program features a prologue and epilogue read by the author.
From journalist Paul Kix, the riveting story, never before fully told, of the 1963 Birmingham Campaign—ten weeks that would shape the course of the Civil Rights Movement and the future of America.
It’s one of the iconic photographs of American history: A Black teenager, a policeman and his lunging German Shepherd. Birmingham, Alabama, May of 1963. In May of 2020, as reporter Paul Kix stared at a different photo–that of a Minneapolis police officer suffocating George Floyd–he kept returning to the other photo taken half a century earlier, haunted by its echoes. What, Kix wondered, was the full legacy of the Birmingham photo? And of the campaign it stemmed from?
In You Have To Be Prepared To Die Before You Can Begin To Live, Paul Kix takes the listener behind the scenes as he tells the story of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference’s pivotal 10 week campaign in 1963 to end segregation in Birmingham, Alabama. At the same time, he also provides a window into the minds of the four extraordinary men who led the campaign—Martin Luther King, Jr., Wyatt Walker, Fred Shuttlesworth, and James Bevel.
With captivating prose that sounds like a thriller, Kix’s audiobook is the first to zero in on the ten weeks of Project C, as it was known—its specific history and its echoes sounding throughout our culture now. It’s about Where It All Began, for sure, but it’s also the key to understanding Where We Are Now and Where We Will Be. As the fight for equality continues on many fronts, Project C is crucial to our understanding of our own time and the impact that strategic activism can have.
A Macmillan Audio production from Celadon Books.
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“Jaime Lincoln–Smith’s performance is exceptional. He complements the book’s historical precision with his delivery of the memorable voice of Martin Luther King, Jr., while also creating personas for the other leaders…He mixes in precise tones and a range of emotions that enhance this previously untold chronicle of the Civil Rights movement… Winner of the AudioFile Earphones Award.”
— AudioFile
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“Brilliantly building the backstories of the heroes, the villains, and the fits and starts of the campaign that would change America, Kix makes history come alive. This is the best kind of narrative nonfiction.”
— Amazon.com -
"A gripping, novelistic account…Readers will be riveted from the first page to the last.”
— Publishers Weekly (starred review) -
“Kix’s vivid and often maddening account of police brutality, ignorant racism, and the power of misguided ideas makes for sobering reading…An eloquent contribution to the literature of civil rights and the ceaseless struggle to attain them.”
— Kirkus Reviews (starred review) -
“Masterfully follows the story of the protests, from the early planning stages through the demonstrations and city officials’ violent responses… A meticulously written and researched history in all its complexity.”
— Library Journal (starred review) -
“Makes a convincing case that Birmingham 1963 was the linchpin of the civil rights era and perhaps the most consequential ten-week period in modern American history.”
— Hampton Sides, New York Times bestselling author
Awards
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An Amazon Editor’s Top Pick in History
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A New York Times Book Review Editor’s Choice of the Week
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Winner of an AudioFile Earphones Award
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An Amazon Best Books of the Year Selection
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Among longlisted titles for New York Times Book Review Notable Books of the Year, 2023
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Among longlisted titles for New York Times Book Review Notable Books of the Year, 2023
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About Paul Kix
Paul Kix is an author and writer whose previous book The Saboteur, was a bestselling and critically acclaimed true story of the most daring man in World War II. His writing has also appeared in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, GQ, and ESPN The Magazine, among other publications.
About Jaime Lincoln Smith
Jaime Lincoln Smith is an audiobook narrator who has won AudioFile Earphones Awards as well as the prestigious Audie Award in 2022. An actor based in New York City, he has been featured on Broadway and Off-Broadway as well as on network television and in films. A first-generation Jamaican American, raised in Bloomfield, Connecticut, he is an actor, writer, producer, and educator.