January 31, 2005 Journalist Nick Kotz To Discuss His New Book On Civil Rights On March 1

Pulitzer-prize-winning journalist Nick Kotz will discuss and sign his new book, “Judgment Days: Lyndon Baines Johnson, Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Laws That Changed America” (Houghton Mifflin, 2005) at the Library of Congress at noon on Tuesday, March 1, in the Montpelier Room on the sixth floor of the Library’s James Madison Memorial Building, 101 Independence Ave. S.E., Washington, D.C. The event is free and open to the public; no tickets or reservations are needed.

This event is part of the Center for the Book’s “Books & Beyond” author series, which since 1996 has brought more than 75 authors and editors of new books to the Library of Congress for presentations and book signings. In cooperation with the Library’ s Information Technology Services, many of these of these presentations can be seen as cybercasts from the Library on the center’s Web site: www.loc.gov/cfbook.

“Judgment Days” has received excellent reviews. Bob Woodward called it “a great, serious book by one of the greatest, most serious writers of our time.” David Halberstam said, “Nick Kotz has written a marvelous, highly readable book—a thriller really—about the events that changed America in the 1960s.”

In his book, Kotz draws on newly available resources, including President Johnson’s taped telephone conversations, FBI wiretap logs and recently declassified communications between the FBI and the president, to examine challenges faced by Johnson and King following the death of President John F. Kennedy. The author describes how both Johnson and King sensed a historic opportunity born of the popular desire to honor Kennedy’s legacy and the resulting accommodation that moved the two of them and the nation toward the historic Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

Kotz won a Pulitzer Prize for national reporting in 1978. His other books include “Let Them Eat Promises: The Politics of Hunger in America” (1969); “A Passion for Equality: George A. Wiley and the Movement” (1977, with Mary Lynn Kotz) and “Wild Blue Yonder: Money, Politics and the B-1 Bomber” (1988).

Established in 1977, the Center for the Book is a public-private partnership that uses the resources of the Library of Congress to stimulate public interest in books and reading. For information about its activities and those of its affiliates in all 50 states and the District of Columbia, visit its Web site at www.loc.gov/cfbook.