Dr. King's "Beyond Vietnam" speech, April 4, 1967

This morning I had the chance to hear a portion of Dr. Martin Luther King's "Beyond Vietnam" speech, delivered at Riverside Church in New York City on April 4, 1967. 

I was not yet one year old at the time of the speech, and yet forty four years later, his words ring very true to my ear, and much of what he claimed that lay before the American people still lies before them, lies before us.  Indeed, it could be argued that we have spent the last half century heightening the tensions he articulates rather than relieving them.   

What also struck me this morning, hearing Dr. King's voice through my radio, was his magisterial delivery.  You can feel his measured tone in his plain but utterly clear enunciation, marching through phrases with balanced cadence and pitch, allowing his ideas to move the minds of his audience, and not his oratory. 

It further strikes me that he was 38 years old at the time.

Here is a link to what I believe is the full text of his speech:
http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/mlkatimetobreaksilence2.htm

January 16, 2011