QUICK TAKES - June 23, 2009

Four books by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. that have been long out of print will be published again under a deal with Beacon Press brokered by King’s youngest son.

Beacon, a department of the Unitarian Universalist Assn., publishes books on social justice, human rights and racial equality. Among the authors it has published are James Baldwin, Derrick Bell, Cornel West, Howard Thurman, Marian Wright Edelman and Roger Wilkins.

On Jan. 18, 2010 -- the federal holiday observing what would have been King’s 80th birthday -- the Boston-based publisher will release new editions of “Stride Toward Freedom,” first published in 1958, King’s memoir of the Montgomery Bus Boycott of 1955 and 1956; “Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community?,” first published in 1967; “Trumpet of Conscience,” first published in 1968; and “Strength to Love,” first published in 1963, a volume of his most well-known homilies and the book in the civil rights leader’s briefcase when he was killed on April 4, 1968.