4.5
Why We Can't Wait
ByPublisher Description
Dr. King’s best-selling account of the civil rights movement in Birmingham during the spring and summer of 1963
On April 16, 1963, as the violent events of the Birmingham campaign unfolded in the city’s streets, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., composed a letter from his prison cell in response to local religious leaders’ criticism of the campaign. The resulting piece of extraordinary protest writing, “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” was widely circulated and published in numerous periodicals. After the conclusion of the campaign and the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom in 1963, King further developed the ideas introduced in the letter in Why We Can’t Wait, which tells the story of African American activism in the spring and summer of 1963. During this time, Birmingham, Alabama, was perhaps the most racially segregated city in the United States, but the campaign launched by King, Fred Shuttlesworth, and others demonstrated to the world the power of nonviolent direct action.
Often applauded as King’s most incisive and eloquent book, Why We Can’t Wait recounts the Birmingham campaign in vivid detail, while underscoring why 1963 was such a crucial year for the civil rights movement. Disappointed by the slow pace of school desegregation and civil rights legislation, King observed that by 1963—during which the country celebrated the one-hundredth anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation—Asia and Africa were “moving with jetlike speed toward gaining political independence but we still creep at a horse-and-buggy pace.”
King examines the history of the civil rights struggle, noting tasks that future generations must accomplish to bring about full equality, and asserts that African Americans have already waited over three centuries for civil rights and that it is time to be proactive: “For years now, I have heard the word ‘Wait!’ It rings in the ear of every Negro with piercing familiarity. This ‘Wait’ has almost always meant ‘Never.’ We must come to see, with one of our distinguished jurists, that ‘justice too long delayed is justice denied.’”
On April 16, 1963, as the violent events of the Birmingham campaign unfolded in the city’s streets, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., composed a letter from his prison cell in response to local religious leaders’ criticism of the campaign. The resulting piece of extraordinary protest writing, “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” was widely circulated and published in numerous periodicals. After the conclusion of the campaign and the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom in 1963, King further developed the ideas introduced in the letter in Why We Can’t Wait, which tells the story of African American activism in the spring and summer of 1963. During this time, Birmingham, Alabama, was perhaps the most racially segregated city in the United States, but the campaign launched by King, Fred Shuttlesworth, and others demonstrated to the world the power of nonviolent direct action.
Often applauded as King’s most incisive and eloquent book, Why We Can’t Wait recounts the Birmingham campaign in vivid detail, while underscoring why 1963 was such a crucial year for the civil rights movement. Disappointed by the slow pace of school desegregation and civil rights legislation, King observed that by 1963—during which the country celebrated the one-hundredth anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation—Asia and Africa were “moving with jetlike speed toward gaining political independence but we still creep at a horse-and-buggy pace.”
King examines the history of the civil rights struggle, noting tasks that future generations must accomplish to bring about full equality, and asserts that African Americans have already waited over three centuries for civil rights and that it is time to be proactive: “For years now, I have heard the word ‘Wait!’ It rings in the ear of every Negro with piercing familiarity. This ‘Wait’ has almost always meant ‘Never.’ We must come to see, with one of our distinguished jurists, that ‘justice too long delayed is justice denied.’”
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4.5
Ipockolypse
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“A must read, especially for my fellow palm-colores anti-racists trying to do our work and learn how to be better.”Edith-Marie
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Hectamus
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“This volume encompasses an thoughtful account of MLK’s thoughts about his recounting of the some of the elements of the civil rights movement up to that point in history. This book should be assigned in high schools across the nation, or at the very least Letter from a Birmingham Jail which is included in it. Dr. King thoughtfully asses the state of the movement, and equivocates the disenfranchisement of the Black community to transgressions of economic, social, and cultural injustice inflicted upon American citizens as a whole.”
Leah
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““Three hundred years of humiliation, abuse, and deprivation cannot be expected to find voice in a whisper.”
“When he seeks opportunity, he is told, in effect, to lift himself by his own bootstraps, advice which does not take into account that he is barefoot.”
“I had never truly been in solitary confinement; God’s companionship doesn’t stop at the door of a jail cell.”
“We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the hateful words of the bad people but for the appalling silence of the good people.”
“Was Jesus not an extremist for love?… Was Amos not an extremist for justice?… Was Paul not an extremist for the Christian gospel?…So the question is not whether we will be extremists, but what kind of extremists we will be. Will we be extremists for hate or for love? Will we become the extremists for the preservation of injustice or for the extension of justice?”
Deeply challenging and encouraging. I want to fight for justice with the same faith, courage, and spirit the nonviolent demonstrators did. So much of Dr. King’s challenging ideas were left out of my education. But much of what he says still resonates in today’s world.”About Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968), architect of the nonviolent civil rights movement, was a Nobel Peace Prize laureate and one of the greatest orators in U.S. history. The author of several books, including Stride Toward Freedom (Beacon / 0069-4 / $14.00 pb), Where Do We Go from Here (Beacon / 0067-0 / $14.00 pb), and The Trumpet of Conscience (Beacon / 0071-7 / $22.00 hc), King was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee, on April 4, 1968.
Dorothy Cotton is the former education director for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and she worked closely with Dr. King on teaching nonviolence and citizenship education.
Dorothy Cotton is the former education director for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and she worked closely with Dr. King on teaching nonviolence and citizenship education.
Other books by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
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