Paul Kendrick Books in Order

Paul Kendrick was raised in West Hartford, Connecticut, and Boston, Massachusetts. He later headed to George Washington University, where he studied American studies and earned both a bachelor's degree and a master's in public administration.

College was also where Kendrick put his interest in civic life to work. He led the university's NAACP chapter and served as a Presidential Administrative Fellow, experiences that connected organizing, education, and public service early in his career.

His route into books was a family project. In his early twenties, Kendrick began writing popular history with his father, Stephen Kendrick.

Their first book, Sarah's Long Walk, follows the 1840s fight over school segregation in Boston through the experience of Sarah Roberts and her family. The story begins with a young girl forced to walk past nearby white-only schools, then widens to show the determined free Black community, lawyers, activists, and political forces around the Roberts case. It is history with a clear human starting point.

The book also established a pattern for Kendrick's work: big public questions, told through people facing immediate choices.

In Douglass and Lincoln, he and his father turn to the uneasy relationship between Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln during the Civil War. The book tracks their different paths, their three meetings at the White House, and the pressure surrounding emancipation, Black enlistment, and the future of the Union. It keeps the focus on argument, strategy, and the hard work behind political change.

Kendrick's professional life has often stayed close to those same concerns. He has worked in college access and student-success programs, including the Harlem Children's Zone, and held roles in public service and political organizing. His work has included service in the U.S. Department of Education and the White House, as well as efforts centered on education and civic participation.

History, in his books, is never just a list of dates.

After more than a decade away from book publishing, Kendrick and his father returned with Nine Days. Published in 2021, it recounts Martin Luther King Jr.'s jailing in October 1960 and the small group of lawyers, journalists, campaign aides, and family members who worked for his release as a presidential election approached. The book brings together civil rights organizing and campaign politics without losing sight of the danger King faced in prison.

Readers who like American history told through tense moments, personal relationships, and practical political choices will find a through line across Kendrick's books. He lives in Chicago with his wife, Kori Schulman, and their daughters.