Stride Toward Freedom (Book) Summary and Analysis

In 1958, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. published this book to provide an accurate history of his life and the events surrounding the Montgomery boycott, the beginning of the civil rights movement. Before the boycott, he and his wife, Coretta, had resented segregation, though they had been shielded from it. Their families were middle class and they attended northern colleges in which segregation was not as prevalent.

He had been a preacher at his church in Montgomery for only a short while before Rosa Parks was arrested for refusing to move for a white man on a bus. The community had reached the point in which they were willing to stand up for themselves, and agreed to boycott the bus system for nearly a year. Carpools were organized. Drivers included both black and white drivers; many...