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by Simon Starr (Author)
Why I Am Opposed to the War in Vietnam is a sermon delivered on April 30th, 1967 at the Riverside Church, New York by Dr Martin Luther King Jr. This soul stirring sermon is as relevant in todays convoluted geopolitical and social space as it was when it was first delivered. "It seemed that there was a real promise of hope for the poor, both black and white, through the Poverty Program. There were experiments, hopes, and new beginnings. Then came the build-up in Vietnam. And I watched the program broken as if it was some idle political plaything of a society gone mad on war. And I knew that America would never invest the necessary funds or energies in rehabilitation of its poor so long as adventures like Vietnam continued to draw men and skills and money, like some demonic, destructive suction tube. And you may not know it, my friends, but it is estimated that we spend $500,000 to kill each enemy soldier, while we spend only fifty-three dollars for each person classified as poor, and much of that fifty-three dollars goes for salaries to people that are not poor. So I was increasingly compelled to see the war as an enemy of the poor, and attack it as such." Martin Luther King Jr
