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<\/a>“Why I Oppose the War in Vietnam” – Dr. Martin Luther King jr. Dodd Center, Archives & Special Collections LP’s.<\/p><\/div>\n
This edition of Martin Luther King Jr. day\u00a0means many things this\u00a0year.\u00a0\u00a0A significant day to reflect on historical\u00a0achievements in the United States for African Americans and people of color\u00a0regarding civil rights and segregation,\u00a0 and as a nation, its first African American\u00a0Commander in Chief takes\u00a0office today.\u00a0 Though\u00a0the\u00a0Archives\u00a0& Special Collections at the University of Connecticut may not contain\u00a0Lincoln’s bible which will be used today in the\u00a0swearing in of President Obama for his second term, we do have important materials that help contextualize why the issues of human rights\u00a0for people of color in the United States and around the world\u00a0matter\u00a0now as ever.<\/p>\n
A linkage\u00a0between the US\u00a0government’s role in violence in the third world during the\u00a0War in Vietnam and the violence against people\u00a0of color\u00a0at home was\u00a0a major\u00a0topic of King’s speeches in the last year of his life.\u00a0 Other important figures like Olaudah Equiano, Frederick Douglass, W.E.B. Du Bois, \u00a0Malcolm X and Angela Davis have also taken the stance on racism and\u00a0human rights abuse to the internationalist position that a\u00a0violence against people of color around the world\u00a0is a\u00a0violence to all.\u00a0 On\u00a0this inaugural day of the President of the United States, taking\u00a0the steps of the building which he will stand upon, built by African Americans enslaved 150 years ago, will\u00a0symbolize an overwhelming achievement in a nation’s history.\u00a0 For\u00a0the role of African Americans in the making of this country that has\u00a0systematically seen its power turned to their oppression, the event symbolizes an equally outstanding time in history which lays deep within the meaning making of the citizen, the culture, and the class.\u00a0 The struggles of African American draftees, Medgar Evers of the NAACP, Harriet Tubman and the underground railroad, Freedom Riders from North to South and The 54th Regiment\u00a0of Massachusetts all became witness to the atrocity and injustice brought to their people.\u00a0 The contextual archive, such as Why I Oppose the War in Vietnam<\/em>,\u00a0also bears witness\u00a0to those injustices\u00a0which continue on to\u00a0lay the groundwork for\u00a0the now, the tomorrow and thereafter.<\/p>\n “We as a\u00a0nation must undergo a\u00a0radical revolution of values, we must rapidly begin the shift from a thing oriented society to a person oriented society, when machines and computers, profit motives and property rights, are considered more important than people, the\u00a0giant triplets of racism, extreme materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered.\u00a0A true revolution of values will soon cause\u00a0us to question the fairness and justice of many of our past and present policies…true compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar, it comes to see that\u00a0an edifice that produces\u00a0beggars needs restructuring.”<\/em>\u00a0– Martin Luther King Jr., April 4, 1967.<\/p>\n Materials on Civil Rights and Human Rights can be found at\u00a0the Dodd Center’s\u00a0Archives & Special Collections such as the LP Why I\u00a0Oppose the War in Vietnam<\/em><\/a>.\u00a0 For\u00a0access to other radical LP’s from our Alternative Press Collection<\/a>, please contact the Curator<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" “There comes a time when silence is betrayal,” Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. (1929-1968)\u00a0said from\u00a0the pulpit at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta on April 16, 1967, “I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed in … Continue reading