Offered is a Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. inscribed and signed hard cover copy of his 1958 book, “Stride Toward Freedom The Montgomery Story”. The slain civil rights leader inscribed “With Best Wishes Martin Luther King Jr.” in blue pen on the reverse fly leaf in the front of the book. The page is inscribed in unknown hand in lighter blue pen, “To Audrey and John Gault”. The interior pages of the book are in good condition with no obvious defects in the pages or binding. The reprint book jacket has a small tear in the lower spine, and small folds in the interior front flap. This King-signed book is accompanied by the original book jacket, with tears in the lower front, upper right back, spine and worn right edge on the front cover. 

According to King, “Stride Toward Freedom”, his memoir of the Montgomery bus boycott, is “the chronicle of 50,000 Negroes who took to heart the principles of nonviolence, who learned to fight for their rights with the weapon of love, and who in the process, acquired a new estimate of their own human worth.” In early 1957 numerous publishers began encouraging King to write a book about the boycott. By October of that year, he signed a contract with Harper & Brothers that was negotiated by his new literary agents, Joan Daves and Marie Rodell, and began work on the manuscript. In “Stride Toward Freedom”, King delineates racial conditions in Montgomery before, during, and after the bus boycott. He discusses the origin and significance of the boycott, the roles that residents, civic leaders, and community organizations played in organizing and sustaining the movement, and the reactions of white Montgomery officials and residents. This item comes with a LOA from PSA/DNA.

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