Author | Martin Luther King, Jr. |
---|---|
Cover artist | Bob Kosturko |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Subject | Civil Rights, Economic Justice |
Publisher | Beacon Press |
Publication date
|
1967, 2010 |
Media type | Book |
Pages | 223 |
ISBN |
Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community? is a 1967 book by African-American minister, Nobel Peace Prize laureate, and social justice campaigner Martin Luther King, Jr. Advocating for human rights and a sense of hope, it was King's fourth and last book before his assassination. He spent a long period in isolation, living in a rented residence in Jamaica with no telephone, composing the book.
It later lapsed out of print until Beacon Press published an expanded edition in 2010, which featured a new introduction passage by King's long-time friend Vincent Gordon Harding and a foreword by King's wife, Coretta Scott King. The book received critical acclaim, its revamped version being highlighted as a 2011 University Press Book for Public and Secondary School Libraries and recommended for use in teaching.
One of the central themes of the book's messages is that of hope. King looks back at the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s. He discusses the question of what African-Americans should do with their new freedoms found in laws such as the Voting Rights Act of 1965. He concludes that all Americans must unite in order to fight poverty and create an equality of opportunity. King emphasizes that he is neither a Marxist nor a doctrinaire socialist; he instead advocates for a united social movement that would act within both the Republican and Democratic parties.