Martin Luther King's ignored message
I encourage you all to read the entire article The Martin Luther King you don’t see on TV, but here’s a salient excerpt.
You haven’t heard the “Beyond Vietnam” speech on network news retrospectives, but national media heard it loud and clear back in 1967 — and loudly denounced it. Time magazine called it “demagogic slander that sounded like a script for Radio Hanoi.” The Washington Post patronized that “King has diminished his usefulness to his cause, his country, his people.”
In his last months, King was organizing the most militant project of his life: the Poor People’s Campaign. He crisscrossed the country to assemble “a multiracial army of the poor” that would descend on Washington — engaging in nonviolent civil disobedience at the Capitol, if need be — until Congress enacted a poor people’s bill of rights. Reader’s Digest warned of an “insurrection.”
Yes, Mr. King had started a new fight, but this one didn’t play as well. Declaring war on poverty and America’s supression of third world countries was not very popular. King’s Beyond Vietnam speech is depressingly prophetic.
In 1957, a sensitive American official overseas said that it seemed to him that our nation was on the wrong side of a world revolution. During the past ten years, we have seen emerge a pattern of suppression which has now justified the presence of U.S. military advisors in Venezuela. This need to maintain social stability for our investments accounts for the counterrevolutionary action of American forces in Guatemala. It tells why American helicopters are being used against guerrillas in Cambodia and why American napalm and Green Beret forces have already been active against rebels in Peru.
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This call for a worldwide fellowship that lifts neighborly concern beyond one’s tribe, race, class, and nation is in reality a call for an all-embracing and unconditional love for all mankind. This oft misunderstood, this oft misinterpreted concept, so readily dismissed by the Nietzsches of the world as a weak and cowardly force, has now become an absolute necessity for the survival of man. When I speak of love I am not speaking of some sentimental and weak response. I am not speaking of that force which is just emotional bosh. I am speaking of that force which all of the great religions have seen as the supreme unifying principle of life. Love is somehow the key that unlocks the door which leads to ultimate reality. This Hindu-Muslim-Christian-Jewish-Buddhist belief about ultimate reality is beautifully summed up in the first epistle of Saint John: “Let us love one another, for love is God. And every one that loveth is born of God and knoweth God. He that loveth not knoweth not God, for God is love.” “If we love one another, God dwelleth in us and his love is perfected in us.” Let us hope that this spirit will become the order of the day.
We can no longer afford to worship the god of hate or bow before the altar of retaliation. The oceans of history are made turbulent by the ever-rising tides of hate. And history is cluttered with the wreckage of nations and individuals that pursued this self-defeating path of hate. As Arnold Toynbee says: “Love is the ultimate force that makes for the saving choice of life and good against the damning choice of death and evil. Therefore the first hope in our inventory must be the hope that love is going to have the last word” (unquote).
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We still have a choice today: nonviolent coexistence or violent coannihilation. We must move past indecision to action. We must find new ways to speak for peace in Vietnam and justice throughout the developing world, a world that borders on our doors. If we do not act, we shall surely be dragged down the long, dark, and shameful corridors of time reserved for those who possess power without compassion, might without morality, and strength without sight.
sMom said
Jan 21, 2008 @ 12:10 PM
Several years back in one of my cranial training classes the instructor was demonstrating a technique on a volunteer. The instructor was speaking with the volunteer’s inner soul about a problem. Suddenly the girl said that she saw a form at her head that identified himself as Christ. She added that she was not a very religious person and she did not understand how or why Christ would appear at her head. She continued that he told her that everyone needed to hold hands. As we were all gathered in a circle around the therapy table holding hands was a simple step but very powerful. She said that Christ then said the message is this, it is all about love. She emphasized as though we were not getting the message, no, you must understand, it is all about love. And then she said again almost in a whisper, it is all about love. That was and is the message.
donald said
Jan 22, 2008 @ 06:07 PM
I find it very sad to compare the hagiography of Dr. King’s message (Be Nice To Each Other!!!) to the actual contents thereof (Power, Meet Truth. No, It’s Not Pretty.)
Stephen said
Jan 22, 2008 @ 09:59 PM
Yes, this speech hardly matches with his portrayal as a font of harmless feel-good rhetoric. I’ve added some books on King and his movement to my reading list.
(And Hagiography is an awesome word.)
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