AT A GLANCE:
Genre/Topics: nonfiction, race, racism, civil rights, social issues, history, politics, Christianity
Length: 166 pages
Release: 1964
Cost for New Copy: $12.99 on Kindle, $8.49 paperback, $4.00 Mass Market Paperback
Why We Can’t Wait by Martin Luther King Jr.My rating: 5 of 5 stars
I picked up this book during the June 2020 protests because so many people were quoting Dr. MLK, and I realized I hardly knew anything about him or what he said besides the basics I’d picked up from school and occasional articles or documentaries. The things I knew about Dr. King were formed mostly from other’s opinions of him in addition to the little I knew of the “I have a dream speech.” This book is entirely written by Dr. King, and I was excited to dive in.
I thoroughly enjoyed the deep exploration of Dr. King’s philosophy of non-violence, in addition to the on-the-ground reporting from the front lines of the Montgomery protests. More than anything, this book humanized the participants and gave reasonings for the movements and choices throughout the protests. My favorite part of the book was the application form to volunteer to be part of the non-violent movement. Volunteering was no joke! If you wanted to participate in the protests, you had to really think things through and go through training first.
This is a fantastic book for anyone interested in the civil rights movement or race relations in general. If there is anything that disappointed me about this book, it’s that so many of the things Dr. King complained about are still a problem today, which shows that we still have a lot of work to do.