Dr. King had a theological, intellectual, and deeply personal opposition to war and violence. That opposition was rooted in Jesus’ admonition against violence, even to “turn the other cheek.” That opposition was also strategic and political. Dr. King knew that an African-American population of 10 to 15 percent of the United States could never hope to defeat the strongest country in the history of the world in an armed struggle.
He also believed that the liberation, anti-colonialism struggles of people of color around the world were directly connected to the civil rights-human rights struggle here in the US as he wrote in the “Letter from Birmingham Jail.”
In 1965 Dr. King began speaking out against the war in Vietnam. He escalated his opposition in the last three years of his life.
Prophetically, Dr. King made his best and most profound argument against the war and American economic colonialism in a brilliant sermon at the Riverside Church in New York City on April 4, 1967 exactly one year before his assassination in Memphis. That night at Riverside he was accompanied by a cadre of progressive members of the clergy including the Union Theological Seminary President John Bennett and Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel.
There is no doubt that Dr. King would have opposed America’s 14 year war and occupation in the Mideast and Afghanistan.
When the news of America’s use of torture in Iraq and in extraordinary renditions around the world, I tried unsuccessfully to organize a public discussion leading to what I believed would have been a very powerful public case against any American involvement against torture by the highest levels of American civil society. I failed.
Dr. King would have led a vocal and loud mass opposition to American torture as the soul damning exercise it was.
Photo source: Jonathan McIntosh on Wikimedia Commons
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