Martin Luther King, Jr.: Beyond Vietnam

Martin Luther King, Jr.

Beyond Vietnam -- A Time to Break Silence

 Delivered 4 April 1967, Riverside Church, New York City

Please go here for the audio of this speech and the transcript: 
 http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/mlkatimetobreaksilence.htm.

I have long shared this powerful speech Dr. King gave exactly one year to the day before his assassination on April 4th, 1968. This speech is at the top of the list of his most passionate, inspired, courageous, and powerful speeches. And yet millions of Americans have never heard it. Millions. I was among them until nearly 15 years ago when I first heard it. And I was blown away, absolutely moved into the very depths of my being. 

This speech is little known because of it's power and it's relevance that remains just as true today as it was on April 4th, 1967. The power of these words is, I believe, what doomed Martin Luther King, Jr. to being assassinated. He was getting too powerful. He was addressing issues that expanded way beyond racism and African Americans to the toxic truths that were most in need of illumination because they clearly impact us all. Martin Luther King, Jr. was getting too powerful. Too many people were listening, too many were waking up. 

And since the time of his death, too many of us have fallen back asleep. Or become part of the cult of powerlessness. 

Yet, all we need to do is connect with enough courage and insight to clearly recognize that words such as Communism can be replaced with Terrorism, Vietnam with Afghanistan, etc., etc. Martin Luther King, Jr. - "I knew that I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed in the ghettos without having first spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today -- my own government. For the sake of those boys, for the sake of this government, for the sake of the hundreds of thousands trembling under our violence, I cannot be silent." Amen.

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When I speak of love I am not speaking of some sentimental and weak response. I am not speaking of that force which is just emotional bosh. I am speaking of that force which all of the great religions have seen as the supreme unifying principle of life. Love is somehow the key that unlocks the door which leads to ultimate reality. This Hindu-Muslim-Christian-Jewish-Buddhist belief about ultimate -- ultimate reality is beautifully summed up in the first epistle of Saint John: "Let us love one another, for love is God. And every one that loveth is born of God and knoweth God. He that loveth not knoweth not God, for God is love." "If we love one another, God dwelleth in us and his love is perfected in us." Let us hope that this spirit will become the order of the day. 

- Martin Luther King, Jr.