All-TIME 100 Nonfiction Books

Why We Can't Wait

For many, the Martin Luther King Jr. they know is a man standing on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial speaking some of the most powerful turns of phrase ever spoken. Why We Can’t Wait lets readers go beyond that grainy, black-and-white television image into the mind of the man who had a dream. The book offers a rare view of King’s courage, integrity, reasoning and conviction, as he details why the summer of 1963 was the time when African Americans in the U.S. could take the oppression no more, why the growing frustration over the slow pace of change — for instance, in integrating schools, despite the landmark Brown v. Board of Education decision nearly 10 years before — finally bubbled up to where black Americans stood up as one and fought for equal rights. In this tome, King crafts the story of the civil rights movement he helped inspire and, in doing so, writes a chapter of America’s history that we must never forget. Because as King famously wrote, “Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.”

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