Thank You, Dr. King

On April 4, 1968, Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated in Memphis, and the world lost a powerful voice for non-violent change. A year earlier, on April 4, 1967, King gave a speech which has come to be known as “Beyond Vietnam—A Time to Break Silence”. I find myself listening to it at least once a year, always learning something and being stretched to think deeply and differently about challenges and solutions for the issues facing us today. It’s an important speech not only for it’s historical value, but for it’s relevance today…great words about human nature, war, racism, the United States, the world and more. His voice is still strong and clear today.

Here are a couple of excerpts:

“Here is the true meaning and value of compassion and nonviolence, when it helps us to see the enemy's point of view, to hear his questions, to know his assessment of ourselves. For from his view we may indeed see the basic weaknesses of our own condition, and if we are mature, we may learn and grow and profit from the wisdom of the brothers who are called the opposition….

“…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.
“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 be only 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.”

The whole speech is available to read and listen to at:
http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/mlkatimetobreaksilence.htm