In Memory of Martin Luther King, Sr. & Jr. and Their Tireless

Work for Human Rights Around the World

“The truth will never let you forget”

I throw myself into chores to work out the internalized resistance, and strive to raise my spirit above the rage rumbling through my red veins. Attempting to frame correct thinking within an incorrect structure that has been built from old destructive regimes of yesteryear is no easy feat. First Nations people in Canada are bearing the fruit of a government’s neglect, and the land, water and air are suffering while governments grant approval to multi-nationals and corporations to monopolize and exploit resources to increase profits. There are moments when I envy the empty complacency of the Canadian status quo with their privileges and carefree nationalism that justifies an oppressive political domination.

As I prepare for my weekly excursion to the local laundry-mat,

I turn on the radio to U of T’s 89.5 fm, a community radio station, and hear the voice of Martin Luther King Jr. and the speech he gave on April 4, 1967. Martin Luther King encourages humanity to press on to “find a way out of this darkness.” The flames of my spirit are burning low and I am tired of struggling just to survive in this land of promise yet I pick up my pen to record King’s inspiring message.

Martin Luther King Jr. like his father was a charismatic leader who was humble enough to be a healer. His passion seeps into my thirsty soul and offers the inspiration to continue to tell the truth, and the courage to write out the pain in my bones and the truth I don’t hear.

M. L. K. Jr. warns “times come when silence is betrayal…and the calling to speak is often in agony. But, he says, “we must speak” and that we, as a society of people must “fan the new spirit rising among us” urging us to “find a way out of this darkness”. King was speaking from the burnings of his heart against the war in Vietnam and against a conflict he said could not be resolved through conflict. Young men, black and white he pointed out, who would not live on the same street in America, are dying together in solidarity, and burning the villages of the people in Vietnam, and that the USA was the greatest purveyor of violence in the world.

In 1957, King was granted the Nobel Peace Prize and it was here, he said where he worked harder than he ever had in his life. His beliefs and principles he testified, grew out of his commitment to Jesus Christ and to “making peace”, and to speaking for the weak and the outcasts. And, he spoke for the people of Vietnam who had been fighting for their independence since 1945 and about how the US refused to support the Vietnamese and instead “fell victim to western arrogance” that influenced their decision to support France. This decision eventually led to the US paying all of the costs of fighting Indigenous people and preventing them from establishing independence and land reforms based on Indigenous values. The people of Vietnam, King said, were put in camps where they watched while their water was poisoned and the land destroyed. Thousands of children were made homeless and abused by American soldiers. We have destroyed families and the land, and supported corruption. King asked a provocative question that is as relevant today as it was in 1967.

“How can the Vietnamese believe in integrity when we charge them with violence when our weapons poison their land?”

The true meaning of compassion and non-violence King stated, is that we may see our basic weakness…to see our enemies point of view, and see the basic weakness in our own condition. After 1954 King reminds us, the Vietnamese were betrayed again and the Americans refused to tell the truth. Ho Chi Min, he said watched America speak of peace …yet dropped bombs on smaller nations.

Martin Luther King Junior’s dynamic and powerful address is as relevant in 2010 as it was in 1967, and a message that must not stop until “all slaves are completely free and the madness stops”. King warns, “Each day the war goes on hatred grows… and that the initiative to stop it must be ours”. The world, King said, demands maturity from America to admit they have been wrong. We must be prepared “to put action into words and to lay our life on the line.” The war in Vietnam said King “was a symptom of a far deeper problem that requires a revolution of values, justice and policies. We must see that the whole Jericho Road needs transforming, and that the edifices we protect produces the beggars we punish”.  A nation, King said, that continues to spend on military year after year and not on social programs is approaching spiritual death. Our hope, he said is to “capture the revolutionary spirit and to challenge the status quo, and that our loyalties must be ecumenical to preserve the best in our individual societies, and have unconditional love for all mankind. Love is a saving force…the first is hope, in our inventory when we are confronted with the urgency of now…when life leaves us standing naked and rejected. King encourages us to be vigilant in non-violence and to speak for justice, warning us that if we don’t act we’ll be dragged down. He calls us to rededicate ourselves to the beautiful ….in solidarity and hope and that ‘though evil prosper, yet the truth be strong’.

Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated one year from the date of this address, yet his message is as inspirational and relevant as it was in 1967. He did not live to see “justice roll down like a mighty river”, but his message still is a beacon of light and hope for the oppressed in 2010.

Audrey Redman

January 23, 2010

Share this: