MARTIN LUTHER KING JR. - Democratic Underground

Orwellian_Ghost

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Sun Jan-20-08 09:43 PM
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MARTIN LUTHER KING JR.

"Somehow this madness must cease. We must stop now. I speak as a child of God and brother to the suffering poor of Vietnam.
I speak for those whose land is being laid waste, whose homes are being destroyed, whose culture is being subverted. I speak
for the poor in America who are paying the double price of smashed hopes at home and death and corruption in Vietnam. I
speak as a citizen of the world, for the world as it stands aghast at the path we have taken. I speak as an American to the
leaders of my own nation. The great initiative in this war is ours. The initiative to stop it must be ours."

Martin Luther King, Jr., The Trumpet of Conscience, 1967.

"A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching
spiritual death."

Martin Luther King, Jr., Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community?, 1967.

"The curse of poverty has no justification in our age. It is socially as cruel and blind as the practice of cannibalism at the dawn of
civilization, when men ate each other because they had not yet learned to take food from the soil or to consume the abundant
animal life around them. The time has come for us to civilize ourselves by the total, direct and immediate abolition of poverty."

Martin Luther King, Jr., Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community?, 1967.

"Discrimination is a hellhound that gnaws at Negroes in every waking moment of their lives to remind them that the lie of their
inferiority is accepted as truth in the society dominating them."

Martin Luther King, Jr., speech, Southern Christian Leadership Conference, Atlanta, Georgia, August 16, 1967.

"When we ask Negroes to abide by the law, let us also declare that the white man does not abide by law in the ghettos. Day in
and day out he violates welfare laws to deprive the poor of their meager allotments; he flagrantly violates building codes and
regulations; his police make a mockery of law; he violates laws on equal employment and education and the provisions of civil
services. The slums are the handiwork of a vicious system of the white society; Negroes live in them, but they do not make
them, any more than a prisoner makes a prison."

Martin Luther King, Jr., The Trumpet of Conscience, 1967.

"Success, recognition, and conformity are the bywords of the modern world where everyone seems to crave the anesthetizing
security of being identified with the majority."

Martin Luther King, Jr., Strength to Love, 1963.

"Human salvation lies in the hands of the creatively maladjusted."

Martin Luther King, Jr., Strength to Love, 1963.

"I am aware that there are many who wince at a distinction between property and persons--who hold both sacrosanct. My
views are not so rigid. A life is sacred. Property is intended to serve life, and no matter how much we surround it with rights and
respect, it has no personal being. It is part of the earth man walks on; it is not man."

Martin Luther King, Jr., The Trumpet of Conscience, 1967.

"The bombs in Vietnam explode at home; they destroy the hopes and possibilities for a decent America."

Martin Luther King, Jr., Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community?, 1967.

"Many of the ugly pages of American history have been obscured and forgotten....America owes a debt of justice which it has
only begun to pay. If it loses the will to finish or slackens in its determination, history will recall its crimes and the country that
would be great will lack the most indispensable element of greatness--justice."

Martin Luther King, Jr., Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community?, 1967.

"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."

Martin Luther King Jr., Beyond Viet Nam- A Time To Break Silence

This speech was delivered 4 April 1967 at a meeting of Clergy and Laity Concerned at Riverside Church in New York City.

In 1957 when a group of us formed the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, we chose as our motto: "To save the soul of America." We were convinced that we could not limit our vision to certain rights for black people, but instead affirmed the conviction that America would never be free or saved from itself until the descendants of its slaves were loosed completely from the shackles they still wear. In a way we were agreeing with Langston Hughes, that black bard of Harlem, who had written earlier:

O, yes,
I say it plain,
America never was America to me,
And yet I swear this oath —
America will be!

Now, it should be incandescently clear that no one who has any concern for the integrity and life of America today can ignore the present war. If America's soul becomes totally poisoned, part of the autopsy must read: Vietnam-Iraq. It can never be saved so long as it destroys the deepest hopes of men the world over. So it is that those of us who are yet determined that America will be are led down the path of protest and dissent, working for the health of our land.…