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| AP photo from a peace rally in 1967 |
You haven't heard the 'Beyond Vietnam' speech on network news retrospectives, but national media heard it loud and clear back in 1967--and loudly denounced it. Life magazine called it 'demagogic slander that sounded like a script for Radio Hanoi.' The Washington Post patronized that 'King has diminished his usefulness to his cause, his country, his people.'Related: "Beyond Vietnam / A Time to Break Silence" April 4, 1967
In his last months, King was organizing the most militant project of his life: the Poor People's Campaign. He crisscrossed the country to assemble 'a multiracial army of the poor' that would descend on Washington--engaging in nonviolent civil disobedience at the Capitol, if need be--until Congress enacted a poor people's bill of rights. Reader's Digest warned of an 'insurrection.'
King's economic bill of rights called for massive government jobs programs to rebuild America's cities. He saw a crying need to confront a Congress that had demonstrated its 'hostility to the poor'--appropriating 'military funds with alacrity and generosity,' but providing 'poverty funds with miserliness.'
