This excerpt is part of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “I Have a Dream Speech” delivered during the March on Washington on August 28, 1963.

It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment. This sweltering summer of the Negro’s legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality. Nineteen sixty-three is not an end, but a beginning. Those who hope that the Negro needed to blow off steam and will now be content will have a rude awakening if the nation returns to business as usual. There will be neither rest nor tranquility in America until the Negro is granted his citizenship rights.

What situation was Dr. King describing?

A
major demonstrations against inequality in Birmingham, Alabama

B
disorder after the repeal of the Civil Rights Act

C
concern about the impact of Brown v. Board of Education

D
opposition voiced by Lyndon Johnson to congressional action on civil rights