January 13, 2026: MLK Breaking Silence on Militarism

Before Voices of Resistance co-hosts Opollo, Margie, Robo and Barbara continued our conversation about MLK and his 3-legged stool of evil, Randy Zurcher, local teacher's representative, welcomed us to join him at Monday's MLK parade on January 19 beginning at 10 am at Liberty and East Broad Streets.    

Following last week's conversation about capitalism, we moved on today to the second evil of MLK's 3-legged stool--militarism.  In his speech before Clergy and Laymen Concerned About Vietnam on April 4, 1967, entitled "Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence," MLK described war as an enemy of the poor as Vietnam continued to draw men, skills and money like a demonic destructive suction.  He gave that group 7 reasons for bringing Vietnam into his field of moral vision including this:  "...I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed in the ghettos without having first spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today--my own government."    Two months later, he told the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, "We must see now that the evils of racism, economic exploitation and militarism are all tied together...you can't really get rid of one without getting rid of the others."   

As we continued to speak about MLK, the militarism and violence of his time and the criticism he received from mainstream America for breaking silence, we also spoke of today.  With the new year only 13 days old, the USA has invaded Venezuela and kidnapped its president, continued to sink or seize ships leaving Venezuelan ports, bomb Somalia, provide Israel with arms to continue its genocide in Gaza, make plans for invasions of Iran and Latin American countries such as Cuba, and support the actions of ICE agents who killed an unarmed woman in Minneapolis.  

In 1967, MLK broke silence to speak out against violence perpetrated by the USA and we ask:  what about the rest of us?  When will we break silence?   

Next week, we tackle the third leg of MLK's stool:  racism.