Martin Luther King Day
As we observe the holiday in honor of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. we may once again forget the whole of his legacy.
Dr. King articulated his opposition to the Vietnam War in a speech at the Riverside Church. He was castigated in the press, vilified by white liberals who had been his allies on civil rights, and even abandoned by the NAACP and much of Black leadership. His position earned him the enmity of the FBI and may have led to his murder.
As we mark his birthday in the midst of another war, we should remember his words. Surely he would repeat them today substituting Iraq for Vietnam.
“Now it should be incandescently clear that no one who has any concern for the integrity and life of America today can ignore the present war. If America’s soul becomes totally poisoned, part of the autopsy must read ‘Vietnam.’ It can never be saved so long as it destroys the deepest hopes of men the world over. So it is that those of us who are yet determined that ‘America will be’ are led down the path of protest and dissent, working for the health of our land.”
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