Breaking our silence
April 4th is a complicated date. It is the day that Dr. Martin Luther King was murdered in Memphis shortly after speaking in support of striking sanitation workers. It is also the day, one year earlier, when he spoke at Riverside Church in New York, calling for an end to the Vietnam war and for a radical transformation in values. He indicted the US government as the “greatest purveyor of violence” in the world and tied the oppression of people at home to the destruction of people abroad by military violence. He said of his experiences in the cities of the north:
As I have walked among the desperate, rejected, and angry young men I have told them that Molotov cocktails and rifles would not solve their problems. I have tried to offer them my deepest compassion while maintaining my conviction that social change comes most meaningfully through nonviolent action. But they asked -- and rightly so -- what about Vietnam? They asked if our own nation wasn't using massive doses of violence to solve its problems, to bring about the changes it wanted. Their questions hit home, and I knew that I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed in the ghettos without having first spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today -- my own government. For the sake of those boys, for the sake of this government, for the sake of hundreds of thousands trembling under our violence, I cannot be silent.
When I first heard this speech, shortly after it had been delivered, I was deeply moved. Over the years I have come to regard it as an essential document for anyone committed to a revolutionary transformation of this country.
Since 2001 I have been part of initiatives to bring this speech more into our public consciousness. It is no accident that corporate powers have attempted to turn Dr. King into an empty dreamer, rather than a prophet of a new world awakening.
The National Council of Elders (NCOE) has encouraged public readings and conversations about this speech since 2017. You can find recordings of these conversations at kingandbreakingsilence.org. This year we offered conversations rooted in the visions of young people in Philadelphia who committed to a weekend study of the meaning of King’s message for today.
Gathering in a time of unprecedented violence, Dr. King calls us to understand that “these are revolutionary times” and our obligation is stand with those “revolting against old systems of exploitation and oppression” and to see that “out of the wombs of a frail world new systems of justice and equality are being born.”
He explains that our nation is on the wrong side of revolutionary struggles.
It is a sad fact that, because of comfort, complacency, a morbid fear of communism, and our proneness to adjust to injustice, the Western nations that initiated so much of the revolutionary spirit of the modern world have now become the arch anti-revolutionaries. … Our only hope today lies in our ability to recapture the revolutionary spirit and go out into a sometimes-hostile world declaring eternal hostility to poverty, racism, and militarism. With this powerful commitment we shall boldly challenge the status quo and unjust mores."
King pushes us to rethink who we are in a global context, challenging narrow ideas of patriotism, boundaries, and national identities. He explains:
A genuine revolution of values means in the final analysis that our loyalties must become ecumenical rather than sectional. Every nation must now develop an overriding loyalty to mankind as a whole in order to preserve the best in their individual societies.
This call for a world-wide fellowship that lifts neighborly concern beyond one's tribe, race, class, and nation is in reality a call for an all-embracing and unconditional love for all men. This oft misunderstood and misinterpreted concept -- so readily dismissed by the Nietzsches of the world as a weak and cowardly force -- has now become an absolute necessity for the survival of man. When I speak of love I am not speaking of some sentimental and weak response. I am speaking of that force which all of the great religions have seen as the supreme unifying principle of life. Love is somehow the key that unlocks the door which leads to ultimate reality. This Hindu-Moslem-Christian-Jewish-Buddhist belief about ultimate reality is beautifully summed up in the first epistle of Saint John: Let us love one another.
King points to the “fierce urgency of now,” explaining, “We still have a choice today; nonviolent coexistence or violent co-annihilation.” He urges us to “move past indecision to action” and to “find new ways to speak for peace … and justice.” “If we do not act,” he says, 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.”
The violence we have come to accept as normal is “a symptom of a far deeper malady within the American spirit,” that demands a significant and profound change in American life and policy.” King says:
We as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. 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.
This year, amidst so much tragedy, the voices emerging for peace encourage all of us to continue to find ways to move together toward a future of liberation rooted in love.