Mayday 1971

A White House at War, a Revolt in the Streets, and the Untold History of America's Biggest Mass Arrest

By: Lawrence Roberts

Narrated by: Kiff VandenHeuvel

Length: 15 hrs and 41 mins

Publisher's summary

A vivid account of the largest act of civil disobedience in US history, in Richard Nixon’s Washington

They surged into Washington by the tens of thousands in the spring of 1971. Fiery radicals, flower children, and militant vets gathered for the most audacious act in a years-long movement to end America’s war in Vietnam: a blockade of the nation’s capital. And the White House, headed by an increasingly paranoid Richard Nixon, was determined to stop it.

Washington journalist Lawrence Roberts, drawing on dozens of interviews, unexplored archives, and newfound White House transcripts, re-creates these largely forgotten events through the eyes of dueling characters. Woven into the story too are now-familiar names including John Kerry, Jane Fonda, and Daniel Ellsberg, leaker of the Pentagon Papers. It began with a bombing inside the US Capitol—a still-unsolved case to which Roberts brings new information. To prevent the Mayday Tribe’s guerrilla-style traffic blockade, the government mustered the military. Riot squads swept through the city, arresting more than 12,000 people. As a young female public defender led a thrilling legal battle to free the detainees, Nixon and his men took their first steps down the road to the Watergate scandal and the implosion of the presidency.

Mayday 1971 is the ultimately inspiring story of a season when our democracy faced grave danger, and survived.

©2020 Lawrence Roberts (P)2020 Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Untold story of the Vietnam War era, told well

The definitive account of the largest mass arrest in American history. Not only has Lawrence Roberts uncovered lots of incredible episodes - like the extreme measures taken by the Nixon White House to squash the demonstrations - but he's written it like a political thriller. The narrator does a superb job, telling the story with energy. His imitation of Nixon's voice is spot on. Highly recommended.

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A great historical narrative

Though this historical accounting takes place in 1971, it holds valuable lessons for our current times. This is not a dry presentation of history, but a well written and narrated account of an important and under-reported piece of recent American history.