David Vistor Harris was born in 1946 in California. Harris attended Stanford University on a scholarship. In his sophomore year, he left school for a month to join the civil rights movement¿s Mississippi Project, conducting voter registration with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. Harris marched in his first demonstration against the Vietnam War in late 1964. Upon leaving Stanford, Harris became an organizer in the anti war and draft resistance movements. He was ordered to report for military duty in January, 1968, refused, and was almost immediately indicted on felony charges. Harris was held for a month in County Jail, seven months in a minimum security Federal Prison Camp in Arizona, and twelve months in a maximum security cell block at the Federal Correctional Institution, La Tuna, Texas.
Harris began an almost ten year tenure at The New York Times Magazine in 1978. Then, having already written five books, he moved to writing books exclusively. Harris¿ career as an author began in 1970 with his publication of Goliath. That book was followed by I Shoulda Been Home Yesterday: Twenty Months In Jail For Not Killing Anybody, a memoir about his time in prison. His other works include: The Last Scam, Dreams Die Hard: Three Men¿s Journey Through the Sixties, The League: The Rise and Decline of the NFL, and The Last Stand: The War between Wall Street and Main Street.
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