Rev. King sadly disparaged for his opposition to Vietnam War

By Walt Zlotow  

On Rev. Martin Luther King Day I always reflect on the last year of his life he kicked off with his “Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break the Silence” at New York’s Riverside Church, April 4, 1967, ahead of a massive anti war rally eleven days later.

A college senior at the time, I had engaged in both civil rights and anti-war advocacy, and was thrilled King was linking them together. I even made the April 15th rally my one antiwar foray out of Chicago.

Though he long opposed the war privately as a cruel and senseless waste of resources needed to uplift US society, King was reluctant to go public at a time mainstream US political culture still largely supported it. But as King said so well: “A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.”

Alas, King’s trepidation was realized as political leaders including President Johnson, major media outlets like the Washington Post and Life Magazine, union officials and even previously sympathetic whites distanced themselves from King’s righteous attack against America’s self-destructive war against the imaginary communist bogyman.

A year to the day later King was gunned down; his anti-Vietnam War opposition largely relegated to a footnote in his magnificent life’s journey. But it should not be as America still fails to heed his warning that the perpetual wars of this century in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Yemen, Ukraine, Somalia, Nigeria, Venezuela, even genocide in Gaza are continuing our inexorable road to spiritual death.

Walt Zlotow, West Suburban Peace Coalition Glen Ellyn IL

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