Ann Bausum was ten years old when she heard the news of the death of Martin Luther King, Jr., announced on national TV. Years later, she wrote multiple books for young readers and teens about this and other pivotal events from social justice history, including the Freedom Rides of 1961 and the March Against Fear in 1966. Her work in Memphis for a book about the city's 1968 sanitation workers strike inspired this commemoration of Dr. King's final days. Having come of age in the American South, she lives now in southern Wisconsin.