Why We Can't Wait ("Letter from a Birmingham Jail") by Martin Luther King, Jr.

Everyone should read this. I cannot believe it took me so long. 

I love his philosophy of non-violence. Everyone who volunteered was required to sign a commitment card that read: 

"I hereby pledge myself, my person and body, to the non-violent movement. Therefore, I will keep the following ten commandments:

1. Meditate daily on the teachings and life of Jesus.
2. Remember always that the non-violent movement in Birmingham seeks justice and reconciliation, not victory.
3. Walk and talk in a manner of love, for God is love.
4. Pray daily to be used by God in order that all men might be free.
5. Sacrifice personal wishes in order that all men might be free. 
6. Observe, with both friend and foe, the ordinary rules of courtesy. 
7. Seek to perform regular service for others and for the world.
8. Refrain from the violence of fist, tongue, or heart.
9. Strive to be in good spiritual and bodily health.
10. Follow the directions of the movement and of the captain of the demonstration."

WOW! Such great leadership. Hero in my book. 

Here is why James Mustich thinks it should be one of the 1000 Books You Read Before You Die:

James Mustich

"Never before have I written so long a letter. I’m afraid it is much too long to take your precious time. I can assure you that it would have been much shorter if I had been writing from a comfortable desk, but what else can one do when he is alone in a narrow jail cell other than write long letters, think long thoughts and pray long prayers?" That’s from the close of “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” the centerpiece of Why We Can’t Wait, and the book’s thematic fulcrum. The audience Martin Luther King Jr. is addressing is a group of eight white clergymen who had published an opinion piece in the Birmingham News describing the nonviolent campaign of protests against segregation led by King and others as the “unwise and untimely” acts of impatient extremists. The rest of Why We Can’t Wait augments its intensity with a more programmatic agenda for a civil rights revolution, an agenda that would bear fruit in landmark legislation in the mid-1960s. Although dated, even this portion of the book seems ever relevant, sadly enough, to our national discourse.