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Martin Luther King’s Why I Am Opposed To The Vietnam War

“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”

That, a quote from Martin Luther King Jr.’s speech The Other America in 1968, is not one of his better known quotes.

King, who is officially recognized on this day in the United States but celebrated the world over, is of course better remembered for his historic I Have A Dream speech – a touchstone of his civil rights movement, and one that altered the course of history.

But closer to his assassination, many of his ideas revolved around his opposition to the Vietnam war, as the above quote does.

As politicians, newspapers, schools or even The King Center in Atlanta remember him on what would have been his 82nd year, rarely are his antiwar teachings highlighted.

This is something he was still alive to recognize. In his speech Why I Am Opposed To The Vietnam War, he lashes out at the newspapers that praised him for his work in Montgomery or his I Have A Dream Speech, and then slurred him for speaking out on Vietnam.

The New York Times, PBS, Life Magazine, The Washington Post, along with a slew of politicians that included the president all came out to condemn him for preaching peace.

Regarding his monumental Beyond Vietnam speech, The Post editorialized that King had “diminished his usefulness to his cause, his country, his people.”

King had called this harsh treatment “strangely inconsistent,” since his logic on civil rights was the same as his antiwar stance.

So, to pay tribute, take an extra careful listen to King’s Why I Am Opposed To The Vietnam War. As much as I Have A Dream, his words still resonate today.

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