Vietnam

Last Friday, June 6th, was the 40th anniversary of the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy. Occurring just two months after the murder of Martin Luther King, Jr., his death in the midst of a momentous presidential campaign signaled to many the end of a hopeful era. In less than four years, John F. Kennedy, Malcolm X, King, and the younger Kennedy had all been slain, and these violent killings laid the foundation for tumult at the summer's Democratic Convention in Chicago, the start of a massive anti-Vietnam War movement, and broader radical forces in the United States fed by the rhetoric of the Black Panthers, the American Indian Movement, the Weathermen, the Young Lords, and other revolutionary groups.

Thanks to my friend (and fire-breathing progressive blogger) Pam Spaulding for posting 'Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. - those other speeches' to remind readers about King's unequivocal message about the injustice of war in his time.

Many of us peace activists are familiar with "Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence," delivered April 4, 1967, at the Riverside Church in Harlem. But I wasn't aware of "Why I Am Opposed to the War in Vietnam," a sermon at the Ebenezer Baptist Church on April 30, 1967.

Read on to listen and read from these speeches.