In the last year of his life King broadened his agenda to address Vietnam, and in so doing put his spotlight on our foreign policy and the larger issue of class and wealth in the United States. He was then totally criticized because he was perceived as turning away from a civil rights agenda, and today his position on Vietnam is generally ignored in the rush to venerate the latter, especially on MLK day. But of course, history has proved he was exactly right about nearly everything.
This is not his first and most famous speech on Vietnam, which he gave at Riverside Church on 4/4/1967. This speech is both a reworking of that first one, and a response to the criticism. He gave this at his home church on 4/30/1967. When searching on the web the two speeches are often confused, and this one is dated and located incorrectly at many websites (even below). A full discussion of King and his coming out on Vietnam is in Taylor Branch’s new book “At Canaan’s Edge” in the chapter titled “Riverside.”
lucky klover 
1000+ words…
1000+ words…
In the last year of his life King broadened his agenda to address Vietnam, and in so doing put his spotlight on our foreign policy and the larger issue of class and wealth in the United States. He was then totally criticized because he was perceived as turning away from a civil rights agenda, and today his position on Vietnam is generally ignored in the rush to venerate the latter, especially on MLK day. But of course, history has proved he was exactly right about nearly everything.
This is not his first and most famous speech on Vietnam, which he gave at Riverside Church on 4/4/1967. This speech is both a reworking of that first one, and a response to the criticism. He gave this at his home church on 4/30/1967. When searching on the web the two speeches are often confused, and this one is dated and located incorrectly at many websites (even below). A full discussion of King and his coming out on Vietnam is in Taylor Branch’s new book “At Canaan’s Edge” in the chapter titled “Riverside.”
RealAudio format (full speech):
http://www.hpol.org/record.php?id=150