Just weeks before the 1960 U.S. presidential election, Martin Luther King Jr. was arrested during a civil rights sit-in in Atlanta, Georgia, and sentenced to four months of hard labor. As King was sent to Georgia State Prison, Richard Nixon’s campaign stayed silent, fearing the political backlash. But John F. Kennedy took a major risk. After being urged by Harris Wofford and Sargent Shriver, Kennedy called Coretta Scott King while she was pregnant and terrified for her husband’s safety. The call lasted less than two minutes, but it changed the entire election. Kennedy’s campaign showed concern, Robert Kennedy pushed behind the scenes for King’s release, and Judge J. Oscar Mitchell released MLK on a $2,000 bond the next day. In this video, we break down how JFK’s phone call to Coretta Scott King helped shift Black voter support, exposed Nixon’s silence on civil rights, and may have helped Kennedy win one of the closest presidential elections in American history.

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