ABSTRACT
Martin Luther King’s policy of non-violent protest in the struggle for civil rights in the United States during the second half of the twentieth century led to fundamental shifts in American government policy relating to segregation, and a cultural shift in the treatment of African Americans. King’s 1964 book Why We Can’t Wait creates strong, well-structured arguments as to why he and his followers chose to wage a nonviolent struggle in the fight to advance freedom and equality for black people following ‘three hundred years of humiliation, abuse, and deprivation.’
The author highlights a number of reasons why African Americans must demand their civil rights, including frustration at the lack of political will to tackle racism and inequality. Freedoms gained by African nations after years of colonial rule, as well as the US trumpeting its own values of freedom and equality in an ideological war with the Soviet Union, also played their part. King dealt with the counter-argument that civil rights for blacks would be detrimental to whites in America by explaining that racism is a disease that deeply penetrates both the white and the black psyche. His reasoning dictated that the brave act of nonviolent mass protest would provoke the kind of thinking that would eventually eliminate racism, and give birth to equality for all of ‘God’s children.’
TABLE OF CONTENTS
module |7 pages
Ways In To The Text
section 1|18 pages
Influences
module 1|4 pages
The Author and the Historical Context
module 2|5 pages
Academic Context
module 3|4 pages
The Problem
module 4|4 pages
The Author’s Contribution
section 2|18 pages
Ideas
module 5|5 pages
Main Ideas
module 6|4 pages
Secondary Ideas
module 7|4 pages
Achievement
module 8|4 pages
Place In The Author’s Work
section 3|19 pages
Impact
module 9|4 pages
The First Responses
module 10|4 pages
The Evolving Debate
module 11|4 pages
Impact and Influence Today
module 12|6 pages
Where Next?