Let's not forget what MLK was really all about

http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/45a/058.html

Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence
By Rev. Martin Luther King
4 April 1967
Speech delivered by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., on April 4, 1967, at a meeting of Clergy and Laity Concerned at Riverside Church in New York City

I come to this magnificent house of worship tonight because my conscience leaves me no other choice. I join with you in this meeting because I am in deepest agreement with the aims and work of the organization which has brought us together: Clergy and Laymen Concerned about Vietnam. The recent statement of your executive committee are the sentiments of my own heart and I found myself in full accord when I read its opening lines: "A time comes when silence is betrayal." That time has come for us in relation to Vietnam.

The truth of these words is beyond doubt but the mission to which they call us is a most difficult one. Even when pressed by the demands of inner truth, men do not easily assume the task of opposing their government's policy, especially in time of war. Nor does the human spirit move without great difficulty against all the apathy of conformist thought within one's own bosom and in the surrounding world. Moreover when the issues at hand seem as perplexed as they often do in the case of this dreadful conflict we are always on the verge of being mesmerized by uncertainty; but we must move on.

Some of us who have already begun to break the silence of the night have found that the calling to speak is often a vocation of agony, but we must speak. We must speak with all the humility that is appropriate to our limited vision, but we must speak. And we must rejoice as well, for surely this is the first time in our nation's history that a significant number of its religious leaders have chosen to move beyond the prophesying of smooth patriotism to the high grounds of a firm dissent based upon the mandates of conscience and the reading of history. Perhaps a new spirit is rising among us. If it is, let us trace its movement well and pray that our own inner being may be sensitive to its guidance, for we are deeply in need of a new way beyond the darkness that seems so close around us.

Over the past two years, as I have moved to break the betrayal of my own silences and to speak from the burnings of my own heart, as I have called for radical departures from the destruction of Vietnam, many persons have questioned me about the wisdom of my path. At the heart of their concerns this query has often loomed large and loud: Why are you speaking about war, Dr. King? Why are you joining the voices of dissent? Peace and civil rights don't mix, they say. Aren't you hurting the cause of your people, they ask? And when I hear them, though I often understand the source of their concern, I am nevertheless greatly saddened, for such questions mean that the inquirers have not really known me, my commitment or my calling. Indeed, their questions suggest that they do not know the world in which they live.

In the light of such tragic misunderstandings, I deem it of signal importance to try to state clearly, and I trust concisely, why I believe that the path from Dexter Avenue Baptist Church -- the church in Montgomery, Alabama, where I began my pastorate -- leads clearly to this sanctuary tonight.

I come to this platform tonight to make a passionate plea to my beloved nation. This speech is not addressed to Hanoi or to the National Liberation Front. It is not addressed to China or to Russia.

Nor is it an attempt to overlook the ambiguity of the total situation and the need for a collective solution to the tragedy of Vietnam. Neither is it an attempt to make North Vietnam or the National Liberation Front paragons of virtue, nor to overlook the role they can play in a successful resolution of the problem. While they both may have justifiable reason to be suspicious of the good faith of the United States, life and history give eloquent testimony to the fact that conflicts are never resolved without trustful give and take on both sides.

Tonight, however, I wish not to speak with Hanoi and the NLF, but rather to my fellow Americans, who, with me, bear the greatest responsibility in ending a conflict that has exacted a heavy price on both continents.

<snip>

.....MUCH MORE.......

"I'd like to begin where Martin Luther King began a lot of his own thinking, with a passage from the Bible. In the Book of Matthew, God says to some of his children, 'Come, take your inheritance'you fed me when I was hungry and thirsty, clothed me when I was naked, invited me in when I was a stranger, and looked after me when I was sick. And the righteous responded to God by asking, Lord, when did we do these things for you? And God answers:

"'I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.'

"When we work to lift others up, we do God's work. When we struggle for equality, we do God's work. When we strive for justice, we do God's work.

"And that is the work of America too. As Dr. King said, when we work for justice, "We live out the true meaning of creed."

"I remember when Dr. King spoke those words on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in 1963. I remember when four young men sat down for freedom at a lunch counter in Greensboro and helped to change the world. I was a young boy then, and I don't think I really understood what it was about. But those experiences are part of who I am - as an American, and as a Southerner.
. . .

"It is good and proper to honor Dr. King. But, in honoring him, we ought to remember him as he was, not immortalize him as he was not. He was a real man, flesh and blood like the rest of us. His accomplishments were the accomplishments of a real man, a man with fears and doubts and faults and sins. In the face of all of his human frailty, Dr. King stepped forward and - sometimes stumbling, sometimes erratic, sometimes defiant, sometimes brave, sometimes joyful, and then so proud - America followed. The miracle of Dr. King's accomplishments is the miracle of humanity.

"Today is a day to celebrate the greatness of humanity, a potential we all share. It would be an insult to Dr. King for us to let this day become just another day off from work, to pat ourselves on the back for honoring an American saint, to sing a chorus of We Shall Overcome, and then continue on our way.

"Today, we should rededicate ourselves to Dr. King's fight, to the fight of every American committed to the true meaning of our creed. We owe it to Dr. King, to all those who sat down at lunch counters, endured the beatings, crossed the bridges, to all those who are fighting for justice in every corner of America today. We owe it to them, to one another, to our children, and ourselves. We owe it to our country, and we owe it to our Lord."

January 20, 2003

King, in this speech, rejected the American government and its imperialist tendencies. John Edwards doesn't have any leg to stand on.

Are you saying that politicians cannot pay tribute to Dr. King or that they must do it using the manner that you prescribe?

And, speaking of pat political platitudes, you are incorrect that Dr. King "rejected the American government." Yes, he had problems with its imperialist tendencies, but he did not reject our government, either in form or substance.

2 things most of our candidates hate talking about (poor people and our latest invasion)

I'm saying, besides Kucinich, we don't have a lot of anti-war, anti-poverty candidates.