This year, the anniversary of Dr. King’s Beyond Vietnam: Breaking the Silence speech comes in the shadow of the 20th anniversary of the US Invasion of Iraq and the third anniversary of the killing of Breonna Taylor by Lexington police. We are also entering the second year of war in Ukraine. 

These moments of connection give us an opportunity to ask some difficult questions about where we are and where we need to go. 

One of the most critical insights in Dr. King’s decision to speak out against the war in Vietnam in 1967 was the recognition that the violence of war is linked to the violence against the people at home. He asked us to look honestly at our history and our present ways of living. This led him to the unmistakable conclusion that the US government was “the greatest purveyor of violence in the world.”

This violence, especially that of the nation state, was destroying us. He said, “A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.” 

In some ways Dr. King is invoking a simple economic fact: the more we spend on war, the less we have available to spend on social programs. Certainly, we see that fact today as US Congress has directed more than $75 billion in assistance to Ukraine. About $50 billion is directly military related.

However, it was not economic chaos that concerned Dr. King. Rather it was “spiritual death.”  

He explained that unless we undergo deep, systemic changes in our culture, 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.” 

He countered this possibility, saying, “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 recognized that unless we engaged in a radical revolution of values, we will find ourselves on the wrong side of world revolutions. He said,

“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 investments. I am convinced that if we are to get on the right side of the world revolution, 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.” 

In thinking about making this transformation, King’s called us to overcome these intertwined evils by creating a new understanding of political power. He explained that “Power at its best is love implementing the demands of justice, and justice at its best is power correcting everything that stands against love.”

He challenged us to find the way to reconnect power and love, explaining that “power without love is reckless and abusive, and love without power is sentimental and anemic.” 

Dr. King invited us to recognize the depth of the transformations in front of us and to create loving communities where individual dignity can flourish, freed from the insecurities of life that diminish our humanity. 

He called us to see that the violence that smashed down the door while Beonna Taylor was sleeping has the same root as the violence that smashes apart families or that unleashed bombs that smash down whole cities. 

This culture of violence, as Dr. King so clearly saw more than half a century ago, only leads to more death and destruction. Our future depends on creating cultures rooted in justice. This means creating new forms of political power anchored in love.