"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, INSCRIBED BY MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.

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. Housed in a custom chemise and clamshell box. $21,000.

First edition of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s eloquent and impassioned defense of what he deemed “the Negro revolution," inscribed by him on the front free endpaper, "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. With "First Edition" and "D-O" on copyright page: indicating publication in April 1964. Illustrated with eight pages of black-and-white photogravures. On the page with King's inscription is written in another hand the date "June 21, 1964" and "Gift of Forest Ashbrook to Rudolf L——" Ashbrook was Deacon of Scarsdale Community Baptist Church in Westchester, New York as well as a friend of King's. King spoke at least once at Ashbrook's church, in 1960.

Book with tape residue to boards, dust jacket with just a few short closed tears, faint abrasions to verso. A nearly fine copy.