by Art For A Change
Saturday, Jan. 19, 2002 at 9:59 PM
vallen@art-for-a-change.com
Don't allow "Wolves in Sheep's clothing" to define the life and actions of Dr. Martin Luther King. The "I have a Dream" speech (1963)is King's weakest... yet it's the only one you'll hear quoted on radio and television. King's "Beyond Vietnam" speech of 1967 reveals the true MLK, the man we should all embrace as a revolutionary leader for all times.
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King, where are your people now?
Chained and pacified.
Tried in vain to show them how.
And for that you died.
You had a dream of a promised land.
People of all nations walking hand in hand
But they're not ready to accept
That dream situation, yet.
King, where are your people now?
Chained and pacified.
Tried in vain to show them how.
And for that you died.
- Song Lyrics to "King" by UB40, 1980
****
The following excerpts come from a speech delivered by Dr. Martin Luther King at Riverside Church, New York City. April 4th 1967. The speech, titled BEYOND VIETNAM, has much resonance in today's world.
"A true revolution of values will soon cause us to question the fairness and justice of many of our past and present policies. On the one hand we are called to play the Good Samaritan on life's roadside, but that will only be an initial act. One day we must come to see that the whole Jericho Road must be transformed so that men and women will not be constantly beaten and robbed as they make their journey on life's highway. True compassion is more
than flinging a coin to a beggar. It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring.
A true revolution of values will soon look uneasily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth. With righteous indignation, it will look across the seas and see individual capitalists of the West investing huge sums of money in Asia, Africa, and South America, only to take the profits out with no concern for the social betterment of the countries, and say, "This is not just." It will look at our alliance with the landed gentry of South America
and say, "This is not just." The Western arrogance of feeling that it has everything to teach others... and nothing to learn from them, is not just.
A true revolution of values will lay hand on the world order and say of war, "This way of settling differences is not just." 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."
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