By MARSHALL WARD
This year, the birthday of Dr. Martin Luther King came at just the right time to help us reflect on the legacy of the civil rights leader. As we consider his legacy, I would propose that his most important speech was not the 1963 “I have a Dream” speech, but the 1967 speech “Beyond Vietnam.”
In that speech, which he delivered exactly one year before he was assassinated, Dr. King foresaw how the Vietnam war implied something larger about the nation. It was, he said, “but a symptom of a far deeper malady within the American spirit, and if we ignore this sobering reality … we will find ourselves organizing ‘clergy and laymen concerned’ committees for the next generation … unless there is a significant and profound change in American life.”
Dr. King was moved by the injustice and inequality common throughout the US. The question he asked about injustice in his 1967 speech was “Where do we go from here?” He said there were two options: community or chaos.