Why We Can't Wait

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Jan 2011 · King Legacy Book 4 · Sold by Beacon Press

About this eBook

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.’”

Ratings and reviews

This was an education for me, a fifty something white female from Troy Mi. I was a young girl during the detroit roits. It was good to here MLK Jr's view point. However I was very disappointed to read the myopic his thinking was. To prove my point just look around us these fifty years later. We are no closer now to world peace than we were then!!! But I am very pleased at how far bigotry has moved along forthe better. We're not perfect here on earth and won't be until we get to Heaven!!! The Lord's way is the only way. Love one another as we want to be loved. God BLESS America (and the entire world)!

I am amazed at the eloquence and clarity that the late Dr. King conveyed his ideas. It took me to the year of 1963 and the events that led to the summer march on Washington. This is an inspiring novel, and a soulful window into the minds of the people who suffered discrimination. Highly recommended.

Essential reading for today's struggles for fairness and equality.

About the author

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.