40 Years Ago Today: Martin Luther King, Jr Goes ‘Beyond Vietnam'

1 year before he was assassinated MLK gave a speech that Time magazine called ‘demagogic slander that sounded like a script for Radio Hanoi’ and the Washington Post said ‘diminished his usefulness to his cause, his country, his people.’

If we do not stop our war against the people of Vietnam immediately, the world will be left with no other alternative than to see this as some horrible, clumsy and deadly game we have decided to play. The world now demands a maturity of America that we may not be able to achieve…. These are the times for real choices and not false ones. We are at the moment when our lives must be placed on the line if our nation is to survive its own folly.

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One response to “40 Years Ago Today: Martin Luther King, Jr Goes ‘Beyond Vietnam'”

  1. Kevin Morrison Avatar
    Kevin Morrison

    Thanks for noting this anniversary, which was apparently not on the radar for mainstream media. Democracy Now! ended its April 4 broadcast with an audio excerpt of the speech and a remembrance. I’ve read elsewhere that the address was filmed. I wonder where that footage lives?

    I posted a short ‘Beyond Vietnam’ excerpt on YouTube, with images from today juxtaposed to King’s words of 40 years ago:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i3zwcQlWsPU

    Let’s hope that by next year’s anniversary, there will be less urgency to spread the word that King had it right decades ago, and we’re still catching up.

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