April 4th can be a day of reflection about our movement as we remember the anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s tragic and untimely assassination and his inspiring speech, “Beyond Vietnam, A Time to Break Silence,” delivered at the Riverside Church in New York City, exactly one year earlier.
Dr. King’s words were both precautionary and prophetic, providing both a diagnosis and a cure – “a true revolution of values” – for our society’s gravest illnesses, “the giant triplets of racism, extreme materialism, and militarism.” And they have never been timelier.
Peace educators and activists across the country gathered this year to commemorate this date and to draw sustenance and inspiration from the “Beyond Vietnam” speech. Here are some of the events that marked the occasion.
- The Pennsylvania Council of Churches in Philadelphia organized a public reading of the “Beyond Vietnam” speech and broadcast a recording of Dr. King reading portions of the speech.
- In Washington, DC the Black Alliance for Peace held a program, “No Compromise, No Retreat in the Fight to End Militarism and War.”
- On two North Carolina university campuses, Asheville and Greensboro, students and community members gathered to hear, read, and reflect on the “Beyond Vietnam” speech.
- Students at Atlanta’s Spelman College came together to share a reading and hold a discussion of current issues facing young people.
- Florida Voces de la Frontera listened to excerpts from the “Beyond Vietnam” speech with translation, followed by a community reception.
- Bail out the People Movement in Wisconsin held events in Madison and Milwaukee, and
- in St. Paul Minnesota as part of their “Yes to peace No to NATO event,” and Women Against Military Madness held a “Commemoration of the Life and Legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr.” at the Minnesota state capitol.
Peace and justice groups in the San Francisco Bay Area organized a public reading in front of the Federal Building in Oakland. You can watch a video recording of the reading by participant Kwan Nam on You Tube. Public Participatory Reading of MLK’s “Beyond Vietnam” speech part 1. Part 2.
The President’s budget request for 2020, released on March 11, would slash funding for nearly every agency except the Pentagon. Trump’s budget calls for $750 billion in military spending, a nearly 5 percent increase over 2019 spending. And it calls for a 9 percent cut in all other discretionary spending, including education, affordable housing, environmental protection, scientific and medical research, public health, diplomacy and more. It also calls for additional cuts to Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security.
In his “Beyond Vietnam” speech, Dr. King declared: “A nation that continues year after year to spend more on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.”
This year United for Peace and Justice joins with the Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival in working to achieve Dr. King’s “revolution of values”. And we associate ourselves with the April 13 – May 19, 2019 Global Days of Action on Military Spending to demand: “Demilitarize: Invest in People’s Needs!”
If you’d like to organize a public reading of Martin Luther King Jr.’s “Beyond Vietnam” speech in your community United for Peace and Justice has prepared a downloadable “kit” to help you. And you can download some printable posters here.
Click here for more Martin Luther King, Jr. resources.
