Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Riverside Church Speech on April 4, 1967 – “Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence”
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. the civil rights activist is well-known. Dr. King the anti-war, anti-poverty and class liberation activist is often overlooked.
In many classrooms, Dr. King’s legacy is frozen in 1963, with his now ubiquitous “I Have a Dream” speech. Yet attached here is a speech I find almost equally as important.
Exactly one year before his death, Dr. King addressed a gathering of anti-war activists and clergymen at New York’s Riverside Church. He addressed the war in Vietnam, especially answering critics who were confused about his antiwar stance.
Many of these critics had marched with King, in Montgomery, in Washington, in Selma…and now they turn on