During the comparatively short period of his social and political activities Martin Luther King published several books and some three dozen pamphlets and articles. Unfortunately the size of this publication being limited we could only include into it less than a tenth part of his literary heritage.

This collection offers a small part of Dr. King's works: anabridged translation of selected chapters from three of his books («Stride toward Freedom. The Montgomery Story». N. Y. 1958; «Why We Can't Wait?» N, Y. 1964; «Where we go from here: Chaos or Community». N. Y. 1967) and of his most important articles and speeches concerning the basic problems of the Negro movement in the USA.

If is only natural that in preparing this book for publication the editors had some difficulties. We aimed at giving the Soviet reader «firsthand» information about Dr. King's activities and views. At the same time we tried to follow the evolution of this prominent civil rights leader's views as reflected in his literary works and speeches. That caused the necessity of a certain selecting of material and its publication with more or less sizable cuts.

Some minor detales, names and facts of small interest for the Soviet readers are omitted in this edition.

The social activities of Dr. King are closely connected with the mighty upsurge of the Negro movement in the US during the past decade. That is why almost all his works and speeches published here are connected with definite events in the history of the civil rights struggle of the Negroes. In a special essay published at the end of this book the reader will find some main facts of Dr. King's biography and will follow the evolution of his views and opinions as well as learn the most important events in which M. L King fook an active part.