When we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual: "Free at last! Free at last! thank God Almighty, we are free at last!"

Martin Luther King, Jr.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=smEqnnklfYs

It’s a bone-rattling, heart-expanding speech. I love it. As a life-long lover of this man and his work, one of the great highlights of my life was visiting his home and church in Atlanta, and walking the Peace Path(?) to Carter’s Presidential Library
.

But Americans today need to read another great speech, the neglected one, the anti-war speech he gave at the Riverside Church, New York City, on April 4, 1967. This is the great speech, the courageous truth-telling speech, the speech that turned the liberal establishment against him and sent fear through the power centres of Washington. This is the great prophetic speech by Martin Luther King, jr., a prophesy still not heeded, alas.

Here’s Yale’s David Bromwich’s excellent take on this speech, the speech Americans largely ignore but need more than ever:

http://original.antiwar.com/david-bromwich/2008/05/16/martin-luther-kings-speech-against-the-vietnam-war/

Human

Time To Break Silence

The text:

http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/mlkatimetobreaksilence.htm

The audio:

https://youtu.be/3Qf6x9_MLD0

A quote:

“It is with such activity in mind that the words of the late John F. Kennedy come back to haunt us. Five years ago he said, "Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." Increasingly, by choice or by accident, this is the role our nation has taken, the role of those who make peaceful revolution impossible by refusing to give up the privileges and the pleasures that come from the immense profits of overseas investments. I am convinced that if we are to get on the right side of the world revolution, we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. We must rapidly begin...we must rapidly begin the shift from a thing-oriented society to a person-oriented society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights, are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, extreme materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered.”

Based on the foregoing quote was a self-fulfilling prophecy by King. He meant it as a warning. And yet that's what our system of government has come down to.

I believe that was the speech that spelled his takedown by the powers-that-be.

Yep. Even the NAACP spoke against this speech and the subsequent interviews.

The Establishment may have countenanced the social justice aspects of the speech but they could not accept the anti-war aspects. That put him beyond the pale, in ‘Cassius Clay’ territory.

Took Ellsberg’s whistleblowing, four years later, to wake people up; but too many chose to stay asleep even after the Pentagon Papers.

And too many are still asleep today, half a century later. Those calling themselves “woke” are often the sleepiest of them all.

So it goes...

Human

The longer I've lived the more I'm seeing history coming to repeat itself.

Who would've thought there could be a repeat of fascism in this century, or a repudiation of a free press by our POTUS?

It's a frightening time we are living in. Democracy wasn't given to us on a silver platter. It can be taken away faster than we earned it through our ancestors blood, sweat and tears.

I pray we have the strength, reserve and will as a people and nation to stand up to despotism wherever it rears its ugly head. That we don't surrender to those forces that would seek to annihilate us or our liberties.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/18/2018 01:37AM by Amyjo.

An old friend of mine from the 1970's wrote a song to honor Martin Luther King. He called it, "There was a man."

He tried marketing it to radio stations for MLK day where he resided in the San Francisco Bay area.

It was an okay song. But it didn't surprise me a whole lot when some of his feedback was that MLK isn't a person to be described in the past tense.

Instead of 'there was a man,' the radio dj's and others informed him, "There Is a Man."

:)

My Mormon father didn't like MLK. So I knew that King had to be a good man.

I'm just wondering on this day of remembering Dr Martin Luther King, how many of you have black friends?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/15/2018 09:29PM by saucie.

I don't. I've seen one black person in a half-mile radius of my home. I don't recall seeing a single black kid at the local elementary school.

I do have a Mexican friend. One of them invited me to see his son play soccer. I was the only white guy in a gym of 500 people.

MLK Jr. did a lot of good.

He was also known for being unfaithful to his wife.

Is it sac-religious to praise him for all the good he did, while all the while he was not faithful to him wife?

Sound familiar?

To me *a* key difference between King and Smith is that Smith was a self-proclaimed prophet & seer (false prophet.)

King didn't set himself up on a pedestal like Smith did.

He acknowledged his humanity, and didn't let that stop him from doing what he had to do for the cause of justice.

Kind of like another JFK. Neither was faithful to their wives.

And yet they were two of the greatest world leaders who ever lived.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 01/15/2018 10:12PM by Amyjo.

The “I Have a Dream” speech is equal to the very best of what America has given the world. Dr. King’s stirring words will be remembered anywhere there is injustice and desire to right the wrongs in an avalanche of peace and justice.

Nothing Joseph Smith, or any other Mormon leader, produced has universal sentiment or contemporary relevance.

Posted by: saucie: I'm just wondering on this day of remembering Dr Martin Luther King, how many of you have black friends?

P: I do. My mailman. He told me his story of what happened to him when he first became a mm: A white man peed urine into a cup, and offered it to my mm).

(Happily, the crude mm. was fired--but not in time to prevent his trying to make my mm. from undergoing this demeaning, offensive experience. PS: He lives around the block from me.)

I introduced the name and asked what the kiddies knew about him. One boy said, "I know all about The King. My Mama said is real name is Elvis." I still get a kick out of remembering that cute kid every year on MLK Jr. Day.

Elvis and MLK would have gotten along very well me thinks.

:-)

What I never realized is that the "I have a dream" part of the speech was spoken extemporaneously at the urging of Mahalia Jackson, who was nearby. She had seen him speak many times. She called out to him, "Tell them about the dream, Martin!" Apparently MLK, Jr., as an accomplished public speaker, was used to going off script based on personal inspiration and the reactions of the crowd.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/28/opinion/mahalia-jackson-and-kings-rhetorical-improvisation.html

http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/20130827-a-song-that-made-america-believe

Thanks for sharing that. How interesting to know that part of his speech was actually improvised, becoming in turn a part of his lasting legacy.

:-)



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/18/2018 12:17AM by Amyjo.

Democrats don't like dreams.

Republicans don't like dreamers.