Here’s one more clip from Martin Luther King, Jr.‘s speech “Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence“, delivered on April 4th, 1967.
I also came across a separate MLK, Jr. quote that I found quite remarkable… and quite biblical. It’s from the book “Strength to Love“, which is a collection of classic sermons preached by Dr. King:
“To our most bitter opponents we say: ‘We shall match your capacity to inflict suffering by our capacity to endure suffering. We shall meet your physical force with soul force. Do to us what you will, and we shall continue to love you.’…. Jesus is eternally right. History is replete with the bleached bones of nations that refused to listen to him. May we in the twentieth century hear and follow his words before it is too late. May we solemnly realize that we shall never be true sons of the heavenly Father until we love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us.”
- Martin Luther King, Jr., “Loving your Enemies”
[Part 3 of a 3-Part series]
Biography: Martin Luther King, Jr.
Speech: Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence
Date: April 4, 1967
Location: Riverside Church, New York City
Excerpt: “This is a calling that takes me beyond national allegiances, but even if it were not present I would yet have to live with the meaning of my commitment to the ministry of Jesus Christ. To me the relationship of this ministry to the making of peace is so obvious that I sometimes marvel at those who ask me why I’m speaking against the war. Could it be that they do not know that the good news was meant for all men — for Communist and capitalist, for their children and ours, for black and for white, for revolutionary and conservative? Have they forgotten that my ministry is in obedience to the One who loved his enemies so fully that he died for them? What then can I say to the Vietcong or to Castro or to Mao as a faithful minister of this One? Can I threaten them with death or must I not share with them my life?”
Related Audio:
Martin Luther King, “Why I Am Opposed to the War in Vietnam”
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Martin Luther King, Jr.
Here’s another clip from Martin Luther King, Jr.‘s speech “Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence“, delivered at Riverside Church in New York City on April 4th, 1967.
[Part 2 of a 3-Part series]
Biography: Martin Luther King, Jr.
Speech: Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence
Date: April 4, 1967
Location: Riverside Church, New York City
Excerpt: “As I have walked among the desperate, rejected, and angry young men, I have told them that Molotov cocktails and rifles would not solve their problems. I have tried to offer them my deepest compassion while maintaining my conviction that social change comes most meaningfully through nonviolent action. But they ask — and rightly so — what about Vietnam? They ask if our own nation wasn’t using massive doses of violence to solve its problems, to bring about the changes it wanted. Their questions hit home, and 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.”
Related Audio:
Martin Luther King, “Why I Am Opposed to the War in Vietnam”
Play audio in browser:
Download
Download audio
Martin Luther King, Jr.
A time comes when silence is betrayal…
[Part 1 of a 3-Part series]
Biography: Martin Luther King, Jr.
Speech: Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence
Date: April 4, 1967
Location: Riverside Church, New York City
Excerpt: “A time comes when silence is betrayal. And 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. And 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.”
Related Audio:
Martin Luther King, “Why I Am Opposed to the War in Vietnam”
Play audio in browser:
Download
Download audio
Martin Luther King, Jr.
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