MB Civic

http://www.commondreams.org/views07/0119-24.htm

These are the kinds of statements the punditocracy “tsk tsks” over..

On April 4, 1967, exactly one year before he was gunned down, King gave his watershed “Beyond Vietnam” address at the Riverside Church in New York:

“A few years ago there was a shining moment. It seemed as if there was a real promise of hope for the poor, both black and white, through the poverty program. Then came the buildup in Vietnam, and I watched this program broken and eviscerated. So I was increasingly compelled to see the war as an enemy of the poor.”

He went on, “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.”

…At Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta on April 30, 1967, King included the press in his critique: “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. There is something strangely inconsistent about a nation and a press that would praise you when you say, ‘Be non-violent toward (Sheriff) Jim Clark,’ but will curse and damn you when you say, ‘Be non-violent toward little brown Vietnamese children!’ There is something wrong with that press.”

Down the memory hole…
-MAB