Honoring Martin Luther King Jr’s’ April 4, 1967
“Beyond Vietnam, Breaking the Silence Speech”
Fifty years ago, on April 4, 1967, Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered a speech which rings across the decades. It is among the most remarkable expressions of prophetic moral, intellectual and spiritual courage. In his speech, titled “Beyond Vietnam – Breaking the Silence,” King – already the Nobel Peace Laureate – broke ranks with pragmatic critics within the U.S. Civil Rights movement who feared the political blowback of denouncing President Johnson’s catastrophic war in Indochina, and named the greatest obstacles to freedom in the United States – and the West: the triple evils of racism, militarism and extreme materialism.