Work · Political Philosophy & Ethics (20th–21st c.)
Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community?
His last full-length book, written amid the debate over Black Power: it rejects separatism and violence, Fanon’s included, and calls for a guaranteed income, economic justice and a coalition of the poor across racial lines.
Introduction
King wrote his last full-length book in early 1967 in Jamaica, after the Chicago campaign against housing discrimination and a year after the slogan “Black Power” had divided the civil rights movement. He grants Black Power its legitimate core – pride and political and economic power – but rejects separatism and violence; in this context he discusses Fanon’s “The Wretched of the Earth” and rejects its defence of violence. The book diagnoses a white backlash and the limits of legal equality without economic change, and it proposes a guaranteed annual income, programmes against poverty and a coalition of the poor across racial lines. The final chapter, “The World House”, places the struggle in the global context of decolonisation, poverty and the arms race.
Connections
Criticizes
- The Wretched of the Earth1961 · Frantz Fanon
More works by Martin Luther King Jr.
As of November 2026 · Improve this page · How Agora is made