Martin Luther King Jr. - Why We Can't Wait, Chapter 3

This episode features Chapter 3 “Bull Connors Birmingham” of MLKs, seminal 1964 book, Why We Can't Wait, as read by Bill McKinney. Kings book outlines why a revolution was necessary and could not wait as well as how he believed it should look. Almost 60 years later we still face the shortcomings of the promised freedom of Emancipation and the need to continue to not wait patiently for change to occur. 

“In Connor's Birmingham, the silent password was fear. It was a fear not only on the part of the black oppressed, but also in the hearts of the white oppressors. Guilt was a part of their fear. There was also the dread of change, that all too prevalent fear which hounds those whose attitudes have been hardened by the long winter of reaction. Many were apprehensive of social ostracism. Certainly Birmingham had its white moderates who disapproved of Bull Connor's tactics. Certainly Birmingham had its decent white citizens who privately deplored the maltreatment of Negroes. But they remained publicly silent. It was a silence born offear—fear of social, political and economic reprisals. The ultimate tragedy of Birmingham was not the brutality of the bad people, but the silence of the good people.”