Why We Can't Wait Summary
Martin Luther King, Jr.

Why We Can't Wait Summary

Martin Luther King, Jr.'s presentation of events and forces behind the Civil Rights Movement in "Why We Can't Wait" focuses on the activities surrounding the 1963 Birmingham lunch-counter sit-in demonstrations. In this study guide the use of the word "Negro" will be used, as it is the word that was used in the text and in the historical time period. The short historical introduction of two young Negro children trying to cope with the experience of their race in miserable living conditions provides the introductory backdrop for King's evaluation of the Negro Revolution. One hundred years after the Civil War and Emancipation Proclamation the American Negro still struggles to be free from shackles of slavery in other forms.

Birmingham is the largest and most segregated city in Alabama. Bull Connor, the city's Commissioner of Public Safety is the racist enforcer of the city's Jim Crow laws that keep the city... View more of the Why We Can't Wait Summary