Help read Martin Luther King Jr. speech Tuesday in Iowa City

IOWA CITY — Veterans For Peace Chapter 161 hosts a community reading of a Martin Luther King Jr. speech from 11:30 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. Tuesday on the Pedestrian Mall in downtown Iowa City.

King first gave his 'A Time to Break Silence' speech on April 4, 1967, at Riverside Church in New York City.

'The speech is quite long and is broken up into segments,' said John Jadryev, co-president of Veterans For Peace Chapter 161. 'This is a big deal for some of us. It's the 50th anniversary of this speech and speaks to a time in our history when we were at war in Vietnam and has a lot of parallels to what's happening in the world today, especially in how the United States is involved in the world today.'

King's speech, delivered to a group called Clergy and Laymen Concerned About Vietnam, opens with King quoting a line from a statement made by the group's executive committee: 'A time comes when silence is betrayal.'

'That time has come for us in relation to Vietnam,' King said.

He continued: 'Some of us who have already begun to break the silence of the night have found that the calling to speak is often a vocation of agony, but we must speak. We must speak with all the humility that is appropriate to our limited vision, but we must speak.

'And we must rejoice as well, for surely this is the first time in our nation's history that a significant number of its religious leaders have chosen to move beyond the prophesying of smooth patriotism to the high grounds of a firm dissent based upon the mandates of conscience and the reading of history.'

King went on to quote poets Langston Hughes and James Russell Lowell, delved into American history and global politics and offered five recommendations for the U.S. government, including ending all bombing in Vietnam, declaring a unilateral cease-fire and setting a date to remove all foreign troops from Vietnam.

He concludes the speech saying, 'If we will make the right choice, we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our world into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. If we will but make the right choice, we will be able to speed up the day, all over America and all over the world, when justice will roll down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream.'

Jadryev, 75, of Iowa City, said members of the public are invited to read a portion of the speech or just come and listen. Those wishing to read do not need to register in advance.

The speech is to be repeated in one-hour time slots starting on the half-hour until 6:30 p.m.

Veterans For Peace is leading the opening session. According to the group's website, the Iowa City-based group welcomes veterans who, 'because of their personal experience and travails in a military infrastructure, now join others locally and worldwide in advocating for dismantling the military industrial complex as a basis for prosperity.'

Other participating groups include Iowa Physicians for Social Responsibility, Johnson County United Nations Association, 100 Grannies and PEACE Iowa.

For more information, contact Jadryev at (319) 430-2019 or Jim Bradley at shoalbro@yahoo.com.

To see the entire text of the speech, visit vfp161.org.