Martin Luther King, Jr. Bio, Beyond Vietnam

Wisdom Quarterly; Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. "Beyond Vietnam: A Time To Break Silence"

(Ben Dial) A 5-minute Biography of Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Christian preacher, wife he cheated on.

(Servant2All) Many have heard that the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. made the comment that the U.S. government is "the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today." What was the context of that statement? This speech, one of his very best, was delivered on April 4, 1967 at Riverside Church in New York City, exactly one year before his untimely execution by the U.S. government and its covert agents. Though not as well known as his other speeches, it is one that speaks deeply to us as Americans. For the full text of the speech, see 4amoreperfectunion.

(Martin Luther King, Jr.) "Why Jesus Called a Man a Fool," August 27, 1967

Powerful quotes

"Southern whites are the negroes' best friends BUT NO INTEGRATION" - Ku Klux Klan

Malcolm X, MLK both worked for equality

(KVR) "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 [the U.S. war on] Vietnam.

"And I watched this 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."

"Faith is taking the first step, even when you don't see the whole staircase." -MLK

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"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."

 

(DAMO) "Our Friend Martin" featuring Yolanda King, Samuel L. Jackson, Oprah Winfrey, John Travolta, Susan Sarandon, Angela Basset, Levar Burton, Ashley Judd, Dexter King, Ed Asner, James Earl Jones, Lucas Black, Danny Glover, Robert Ri'chard,  Jaleel White, Whoopi Goldberg.

"We are adding cynicism to the process of death, for they must know after a short period there that none of the things we claim to be fighting for are really involved. Before long they must know that their government has sent them into a struggle...and the more sophisticated surely realize that we are on the side of the wealthy and the secure, while we create a hell for the poor."

Black lives matter! A racist country countering "But all lives matter" will understand.

 

"This business of burning human beings with napalm, of filling our nation's homes with orphans and widows, of injecting poisonous drugs of hate into the veins of peoples normally humane, of sending men home from dark and bloody battlefields physically handicapped and psychologically deranged cannot be reconciled with wisdom, justice, and love. A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military 'defense' than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death." -MLK

• Sarah Silverman attacks MLK (but she's joking)