Why We Can't Wait

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.