Crusader Without Violence A Biography of Martin Luther King, Jr.

New York: Harper & Brothers, 1957. KING, Martin Luther, Jr.. First edition of the first biography of Martin Luther King, Jr.. Author L.D. Reddick was a friend of MLK's. Octavo (8 3/8 x 5 3/4 inches; 212 x 145 mm). [x], 243, [1, blank] pp. With eight pages of black-and-white photographs.

Quarter black cloth over mauve cloth. Spine lettered in silver. Front board with publisher's mark in silver. Fore-edge uncut. In publisher's dust jacket. Some minor rubbing to extremities of jacket. Back panel of jacket with some foxing. A very small chip to lower edge of rear panel. Overall a near fine book in a very good dust jacket.

"Published (truncated) to critical acclaim in 1959 and long out of print, Crusader Without Violence was the first biography of the dynamic leader [MLK] who emerged from the 1955–56 Montgomery Bus Boycott as the spokesman of the twentieth-century American civil rights movement... The author, L. D. Reddick, had known the young King in Atlanta. They became reacquainted when Reddick moved to Montgomery in 1956, where King pastored the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church. Reddick became a congregant and King's friend and was active with him during the bus protest. He was thus able to report firsthand and at length on King within the setting of the young minister's early career and family life." (Liverpool University Press).

HBS 69373.

$1,000. (Inventory #: 69373)