By Stephen F. Rohde, t r u t h o u t
Forty years ago today, on April 4, 1967, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered a powerful and inspiring speech at Riverside Church in New York City which has become known as Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence.
One year to the day before he would be assassinated, Dr. King declared that he could no longer confine his energies to the domestic struggle for civil rights. Instead, his deep religious faith compelled him to denounce the war in Vietnam, both because it was wrong and because of what it was doing to America and the rest of the world. He declared: “A time comes when silence is betrayal.”
Today, our country is engaged in another immoral foreign war, which must be denounced with the same courage and conviction that Dr. King exhibited. Today, silence about the war in Iraq is betrayal.
Dr. King acknowledged the complexity of the issues the nation faced, and he rejoiced that religious leaders had begun to raise the voice of conscience by speaking out against the war. Today, we must must once again find that “new spirit” and lead our country “beyond the darkness” of the war in Iraq to the light of peace.
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