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Martin Luther King, Jr.
Ebenezer Baptist Church
407 Auburn Avenue, N.E.
Atlanta, Georgia
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[[strikethrough]] Auburn 8-7263 [[strikethrough]]
Jackson 2-4395
September 26, 1961

Mr. James Baldwin
c/o Dial Press, Inc.
461 Park Avenue, South
New York 16, New York

Dear James,

Please excuse me for taking the perogative of addressing you by your first name, but I feel just that close to you. I have just finished reading Nobody Knows My Name, and I simply want to thank you for it. This collection of essays and lectures will certainly go down as a classic on the meaning of the social revolution that is taking place in the United States in the area of race relations. It is written with a lucidity of style and a profoundity of thought that inspires any serious reader. Your analysis of the problem is always creative and penetrating. Your honesty and courage in telling the truth to white Americans, even if it hurts, is most impressive. I have been tremendously helped by reading the book, and I know that it will serve to broaden my understanding on the whole meaning of our struggle.

I would also like to express a rather belated thanks to you for the article which appeared in HARPER'S magazine. It, too, had a profound impact, and I am sure that as a result of it many people came to an appreciation of the dilemma that I confront as a leader in the civil rights struggle. I can assure you that the many kind things you said about me and my work in the article have been of inestimable value for the continuance of my