I was shocked the first time I heard this speech many years ago. This was not the King I was raised to image. Here was a man developing a very radical analysis of race, class, poverty and war in our society. Upon hearing this one of my first thoughts was "No wonder they killed him."
A couple of years ago I revisited this speech and replaced the word "communist" with "terrorist" and found that King's message still rings true today.
On 4 April 1967, King made his most public and comprehensive statement against the Vietnam War. Addressing a crowd of 3,000 people in New York City’s Riverside Church, King delivered a speech entitled "Beyond Vietnam." King pointed out that the war effort was "taking the young black men who have been crippled by our society and sending them 13,000 miles away to guarantee liberties in Southeast Asia which they had not found in southwest Georgia and East Harlem."
Although some activists and newspapers supported King's statement, most responded with criticism. King's civil rights colleagues began to disassociate themselves with his radical stance and the NAACP issued a statement against merging the civil rights movement and peace movement. King remained undeterred, stating that he was not fusing the civil rights and peace movements, as many had suggested.
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