Why We Can't Wait

One of our main conversation topics in class all semester has focused on the idea of how a lot of history is left out of school curriculums. Many moments in history are left out of textbooks which, as we have discussed in class, is due to the location where most textbooks are most produced and also because of the idea that our society does not want to talk about some moments in time. Throughout Martin Luther King, Jr.’s book, “Why We Can’t Wait”, he mentions multiple times on how students are not always told the whole story. On page 12 of the introduction King says, “Not all of history is recorded in the books supplied to school children in Harlem or Birmingham.”. The fact behind this is in today’s world, 2019, not all of history is still recorded in books provided across the United States no matter where you attend school. Adding to this idea, King states “The pale history books in Harlem and Birmingham told how the nation had fought a war over slavery. Abraham Lincoln had signed a document that would come to be known as the Emancipation Proclamation. The war had been won but not a just peace. Equality had never arrived. Equality was a hundred years late.” on page 13 in the introduction. This is another example on how the history we are taught paints the picture that is what our society wants us to see. I learned so much throughout these four chapters. I never knew that the Pupil Placement Law ever existed. I had no idea that it reversed all the hard work put into the Supreme Court decision, Brown vs. Board of Education. I was never taught about how much preparation, time, and effort went into the Birmingham demonstration. I feel as though my education skipped over an important part of history that would have taught me so much more than just skimming the surface of these issues as a text book does.

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