"NEVER IN AMERICAN HISTORY HAD A GROUP SEIZED THE STREETS, THE SQUARES, THE SACROSANCT BUSINESS THOROUGHFARES AND THE MARBLED HALL OF GOVERNMENT TO PROTEST AND PROCLAIM THE UNENDURABILITY OF THEIR OPPRESSION": FIRST EDITION OF WHY WE CAN’T WAIT
KING Jr., Martin Luther. Why We Can't Wait. New York, Evanston, and London: Harper & Row, 1964. Octavo, original half gilt-stamped black cloth, original dust jacket. $1250.
First edition of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s eloquent and impassioned defense of what he deemed “the Negro revolution."
Published the same year Martin Luther King, Jr. won the Nobel Peace Prize, Why We Can't Wait is his powerful response to the assassination of President Kennedy as well as his attempt to "place the events of 1963 in historical perspective, relating the Negro's own long search for freedom since the Emancipation Proclamation" (Oates, Let the Trumpet Sound, 304). Includes King's famous "Letter from Birmingham Jail," published here in full for the first time. With "First Edition" and "D-O" on copyright page: indicating publication in April 1964. Illustrated with eight pages of black-and-white photogravures. Owners stamp of Mrs. Doris Kellogg Neale of Gordonsville.
Book extremely good, with interior generally fine and a bit of discoloration to boards. Price-clipped dust jacket near-fine, with only light wear to extremities. A desirable copy.