Significant signed book: Why We Can't Wait. Later printing. NY: Harper & Row, 1964. Hardcover, 6 x 8.5, 178 pages. Neatly signed and inscribed on the first free end page in blue ballpoint, "To Willie Pearl Mackey, With whom I have enjoyed working and for whom I wish all of the best, Martin Luther King." Autographic condition: fine. Book condition: VG+/None.
The recipient, Willie Pearl Mackey King, was the secretary of SCLC director Wyatt Tee Walker and played a critical role in communicating King's iconic 1963 'Letter from Birmingham Jail' to the public. King wrote his notes for the letter in the margins of a newspaper—the only paper available to him at the jail—and they were delivered to Walker's office. In turn, Walker gave them to Mackey so that she could begin compiling and editing the literary jigsaw puzzle. The final product became a guiding force behind the strategy of nonviolent resistance to racism.
This book, which emanated from the famous 'Letter from Birmingham Jail,' describes in detail the nonviolent movement against racial segregation in the United States, with a specific focus on the 1963 Birmingham campaign. The publication of the book afforded the 'Letter from Birmingham Jail' its widest circulation at the time and drew further support for the civil rights cause. A supremely desirable presentation copy from a landmark time in the Civil Rights Movement.
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