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On the Anniversary of Martin Luther King, Jr.'s Assassination


"THE SAVING OF OUR WORLD from pending doom will come, not through the complacent adjustment of the conforming majority, but through the creative maladjustment of a nonconforming minority.” Martin Luther King, Jr - Presente! (January 15, 1929 - Assassinated April 4, 1968) Minister | Orator | Political Prisoner | Direct-Action Activist






NOW LET US BEGIN


April 4 is not only the anniversary of the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., but it was also the day, one year earlier, when he gave his pivotal speech denouncing the war in Vietnam. The speech was an act intolerable to the ruling class - and may have sealed his fate.


From "Beyond Vietnam:" “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… …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. Now let us begin. Now let us rededicate ourselves to the long and bitter, but beautiful, struggle for a new world.” April 4, 1967 Beyond Vietnam: https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/king-papers/documents/beyond-vietnam Audio of the speech: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OC1Ru2p8OfU

 

Image: MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR Panel: WE FOLLOW THE PATH LESS TRAVELED Mural: THE CITY AT THE CROSSROADS OF HISTORY By Mike Alewitz/2014 Mural commissioned for the Puffin Gallery of Social Activism, Museum of the City of New York. Censored by Museum Director Susan Henshaw Jones and the Puffin Foundation. (Jones used the occasion of Martin Luther King’s birthday to break her silence and justify the censorship of the artwork. One of her objections to the mural was the inclusion of Martin Luther King and Coretta Scott King as central figures in the image) See: https://www.change.org/p/the-museum-of-the-city-of-new-york-let-the-people-of-new-york-see-labor-s-story-stop-the-censorship-of-the-city-at-the-crossroads-of-history

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