African-American leader outlines his principles for nonviolent direct action in the struggle for civil rights in the United States today.

"This is a book about power--specifically, the power of a nonviolent army of determined Negroes who, with a smaller band of committed whites, have concluded that equality is not given but is taken, and that nothing but relentless pressure will ever achieve full citizenship for America's Negroes. 'Power, properly understood, is the ability to achieve purpose, ' writes Dr. King in an eloquent chapter on the Black Power Movement. 'It is the strength required to bring about social, political or economic changes. In this sense power is not only desirable but necessary in order to implement the demands of love and justice.' In the decade since the youthful Martin Luther King, Jr. led the Montgomery bus strike to success and wrote about it in Stride Toward Freedom, he has consistently demonstrated how truly powerful power can be when allied with morality. Under his leadership, the nonviolent revolution has forever altered the face of the old South and has begun to spread to the ghettos that blight our Northern cities. Dr. King points out in his opening chapter that nonviolent direct action has been pronounced dead for the tenth time in the past year [1967]. Yet more gains in the civil rights revolution have been won by his methods than by any other means, and no viable alternative has emerged to take their place. Today, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, which Dr. King heads, is, despite its regional title, nationwide in its program and influence. Where Do We Go from Here provides no easy or blandly optimistic answers to its own question. An extraordinary sense of reality informs its view of the persistent and painful struggle required if we are truly to become a nation--and a world--of free men. Dr. King's vision extends beyond the hard issues facing the Negro rights movement today to argue the common cause of all the disinherited--white as well as black--in a nation where deprived whites far outnumber the Negro poor, and in a world where poverty, racism and militarism are still rampant. In its breadth of vision, its compassion, freshness and felicity of style, this book is a major advance along the frontier of democracy."--Jacket.