BEAUTIFUL UNINSCRIBED COPY OF MARTIN LUTHER KING JR. SEMINAL WORK, ‘STRIDE TOWARD FREEDOM’
Very rare uninscribed Martin Luther King, Jr. book, Stride Toward Freedom. The Montgomery Story. New York: Harper & Brothers, Publishers, 1960. First edition, second printing (publisher’s code “I-H” on the copyright page). Boldly signed by Dr. King on the front free endpaper. Octavo. 230 pages. Publisher’s black buckram over blue cloth boards with silver titles. Original pictorial dust jacket. Deckled fore-edge. Overall, a very good copy with a strong King signature. Dr. King’s first book, with its primary focus on Rosa Parks and the Montgomery bus boycott that inspired the non-violent resistance employed by Civil Rights leaders throughout the American South.
A famous passage from Stride Toward Freedom reads, “Violence as a way of achieving racial justice is both impractical and immoral. It is impractical because it is a descending spiral ending in destruction for all. The old law of an eye for an eye leaves everybody blind. It is immoral because it seeks to humiliate the opponent rather than win his understanding; it seeks to annihilate rather than to convert. Violence is immoral because it thrives on hatred rather than love. It destroys community and makes brotherhood impossible. It leaves society in monologue rather than dialogue. Violence ends by defeating itself.”
