Martin Luther King, Jr.: “Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence”

Essential Quotes

“We are taking the black young men who had been crippled by our society and sending them eight thousand miles away to guarantee liberties in Southeast Asia which they had not found in southwest Georgia and East Harlem.”

“If America’s soul becomes totally poisoned, part of the autopsy must read Vietnam.”

“Increasingly, by choice or by accident, this is the role our nation has taken—the role of those who make peaceful revolution impossible by refusing to give up the privileges and the pleasures that come from the immense profits of overseas investment.”

“A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.”

“We must find new ways to speak for peace in Vietnam and justice throughout the developing world—a world that borders on our doors. If we do not act we shall surely be dragged down the long dark and shameful corridors of time reserved for those who possess power without compassion, might without morality, and strength without sight.”