Friends of the Library Present
Redemption: Martin Luther King Jr.’s Last 31 Hours
(Jackson, TN-) Please join the Friends of the Library on Wednesday, April 25 for a reception
and program beginning at 6:00 p.m. in the Board Room at the Main Jackson Madison County
Library. The author, Joseph Rosenbloom, will present his book Redemption: Martin Luther
King Jr.’s Last 31 Hours which chronicles the time when Dr. King arrived in Memphis at 10:38
a.m., April 3 until he is fatally shot at 6:01 on April 4, 1968. In a larger sense it portrays King’s
urgent initiative to revive his non-violent civil rights movement as he embarks on a quest to end
poverty in America.
Joseph Rosenbloom is an award-winning journalist who has been a staff reporter for the Boston
Globe, an investigative reporter for Frontline, and a senior editor for Inc. magazine. He has
written for the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, American Prospect, among other
publications and lives in Newton, Massachusetts.
Mr. Rosenbloom is originally from Jackson, Tennessee where he attended public schools. His
parents were Joseph and Janice Rosenbloom (later Riddler) and were the proprietors of
Rosenbloom’s, a clothing store on E. Lafayette St.
Beginning in 2006, on visits to see his mother in Jackson, he interviewed politicians, ministers,
lawyers, garbage workers, police officers and journalists who were immersed in the events that
ended in King’s assassination on April 4, 1968 and features recently released documents from
Atlanta archives with 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
pressure 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 enable Ray to
construct a sniper’s nest and shoot King.
His memories of Jackson, like his family’s roots, run deep. He was a maintenance worker on
Interstate 40 one summer and was an intern at The Jackson Sun another summer, where his
interest in journalism was piqued.
Mr. Rosenbloom said, “I now have the opportunity to return to my hometown, to talk about my
book and Dr. King and to renew my connections to Jackson and in that way is a turn of events
that I could not possibly have imagined those summers long ago.”
This event is in conjunction with the celebration of the 50 th anniversary of the death of Dr. Martin
Luther King,
Friends of the Library Presentation, Wednesday, April 25, 2018, Reception at 6 p.m., program at
6:30, Board Room at Main Jackson Madison County Library, 433 E. Lafayette, Jackson, TN
38301. Both events are FREE and open to the public.
For more information, contact Sue Ann Barnes, Friends of the Library Chairman, at 422-5253.
