My Turn: Enough of this 'sanitizing' of Dr. King

By Steve Merrill
Wednesday, February 17, 2010

It seems like Malcolm Whatley has only seen Martin Luther King's 1963 "Dream" speech in his attempt at revisionist history and his backhanded slam at Bernie Sanders, both in two short paragraphs (“King’s ‘Dream’ speech didn’t mention ‘fight,’ Jan. 24) .

Perhaps he should read MLK's 1967 "Beyond Vietnam" speech that he gave a year to the day before he was killed, a speech that Time magazine called "demagogic slander that sounded like a script from Radio Hanoi," and we forget that MLK called the U.S. "the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today" and in this very speech he mentions U.S. "advisers" in Venezuela, American forces in Guatemala, helicopters in Cambodia, and American napalm and Green Berets in Peru.

In this very speech he mentions we "must rapidly begin the shift from a thing oriented society to a person oriented society," and "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." And if Mr. Whatley really wants to hear fighting words he should listen and watch the 1968 "Mountaintop" speech King gave just hours before he was gunned down, the one where he says "The masses of people are rising up...(world over)..the cry is always the same: "We want to be free!"

I've just about had enough of this "sanitizing" of Dr. King, his words, and his actions. Read that "Beyond Vietnam" speech, it's the one that ends with "If we will but make the right choice, we will be able to speed up the day, all over America and all over the world, when justice will roll down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream." Martin Luther King, Jr. was a fighter, and it was precisely because he did not "understand, accommodate, and negotiate" that he was killed, and in his own words it is (still) a choice between "non-violent coexistence or violent co-annihilation."

The same national death wish that was wrought against "communism" and Vietnam when MLK was alive has now morphed into a "Global War On Terrorism" and brought us to Afghanistan at a billion dollars a day, the country where empires go to die, and if he was alive today he would still be "fighting" for a permanent peace against perpetual war(s) and their profiteers, just like a certain senator I know from Vermont.

Steve Merrill lives in North Troy.