Community reading Monday to commemorate MLK’s 'Beyond Vietnam’ speech

IOWA CITY — This Monday, April 4, marks 55 years since Martin Luther King delivered his speech “Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence." Veterans For Peace Chapter #161 is sponsoring a community serial reading of that speech, to be held in front of the Congregational Church of Christ, 30 N. Clinton St. It will begin at 1 p.m. and conclude at 6 p.m. April 4 also marks 54 years since King was assassinated in Memphis, Tenn.

King’s speech on April 4, 1967, criticized the ongoing Vietnam War and said that acceptance of the war was intertwined with the struggle for civil rights. Many civil rights leaders at that time criticized him. As to how it relates to today’s crises, King said in the speech, “A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death. … When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights, are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, extreme materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered.”

The public is invited to listen to the speech, and individuals who wish to read a portion of the speech will be given the opportunity. The speech, along with excerpts from King’s speech on April 3 in Memphis, take nearly an hour to read, and they will be read five times. For more information, contact John Jadryev at (319) 430-2019 or Ed Flaherty at (319) 621-6766.