From a man who had a dream and a mission. A man who 40 years ago today, was assassinated at a motel in Memphis. - Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
(Excerpt from his speech "Beyond Vietnam" given on April 4, 1967 at Riverside Church in NYC - one year to the day before he was assassinated.)
"There is at the outset a very obvious and almost facile connection between the war in Vietnam and the struggle I, and others, have been waging in America. A few years ago there was a shining moment in that struggle. It seemed as if there was a real promise of hope for the poor -- both black and white -- through the poverty program. There were experiments, hopes, new beginnings. Then came the buildup in Vietnam and I watched the program broken and eviscerated as if it were some idle political plaything of a society gone mad on war, and I knew that America would never invest the necessary funds or energies in rehabilitation of its poor so long as adventures like Vietnam continued to draw men and skills and money like some demonic destructive suction tube. So I was increasingly compelled to see the war as an enemy of the poor and to attack it as such. "
It should be noted that the wars Dr. King referred to some 40 years ago are very similar to a wars we are in today. Both the war in Iraq and the war on the poor! Today we should take the time to reflect not on what has changed since Dr. King but more so on what has remained the same. In doing so we should work together to make changes so that his death will not be in vain.
(After giving this speech, Dr. King's invitation to the White House for an event was revoked, this speech was seen as anti American...)
Have a great day!
~Maliek~
No comments:
Post a Comment