Last year on MLK day, I posted an excerpt from a speech King gave here in New York at the Riverside Church on 4 April 1967. The speech is called Beyond Vietnam -- A Time to Break Silence and it contains some of the most powerful rhetoric ever delivered by the 20th century's greatest orator.
If anything, it is even more painfully apparent in 2007 that this administration remains intent on reenacting the Vietnam tragedy in full, including their recent intimation that extending the war to Laos and Cambodia Iran and Syria will somehow help end the war more quickly. ("We take this action not for the purpose of expanding the war into Cambodia, but for the purpose of ending the war in Vietnam and winning the just peace we all desire.")
This year, Taylor Ho Bynum has also linked to King's Beyond Vietnam speech. I thought about choosing another passage to excerpt this time, but really, there is no substitute for listening to King's delivery -- reading his words without hearing to his voice is like looking at a Coltrane transcription without hearing the record. So just go listen.
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