51 77KING Jr., Martin Luther. Why We Can’t Wait. New York, Evanston, and London, 1964. Octavo, original half gilt-stamped black cloth, dust jacket, custom chemise, clamshell box. $21,000 First Edition Of Why We Can’t Wait, Inscribed By Martin Luther King, Jr. First edition of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s eloquent and impassioned defense of what he deemed “the Negro revolution,” inscribed, “Best Wishes, Martin Luther King.” 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. On the page with King’s inscription is written in another hand “June 21, 1964” and “Gift of Forest Ashbrook to Rudolf L——.” Ashbrook was Deacon of Scarsdale Community Baptist Church in Westchester, New York and a friend of King’s. King spoke at least once at Ashbrook’s church, in 1960. Tape residue to boards, dust jacket with a few short closed tears, faint abrasions to verso. A nearly fine copy.
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