On this day in 1967, I was preparing to take the written and road tests for my first driver’s license. Several members of the Senior Class at The Dalles High School, including a few of my friends, were enlisting for military service in hopes of finding a better assignment than they would as draftees as the war in Vietnam raged.
There had been a demonstration that year in my school, which included a student walk out and sit in, but it wasn’t about issues of war and peace. A student publication had been banned from campus, and its editors suspended from school, for including articles critical of the Principal and school board policies.
That incident served to radicalize a few of us, but most of us remained more concerned about the upcoming Junior-Senior prom than napalm being dropped on innocent villagers in a little country in southeast asia.
But, also on that day, on the other side of the country, Martin Luther King climbed into the pulpit of Riverside Church in New York City and addressed the assembled members of Clergy and Laity Concerned.
To this day, I am grateful that my Sophomore English Teacher recognized the speech entitled, "Beyond Vietnam -- Breaking Silence," as one which would have lasting historical significance, and ran off copies of the New York Times transcript of it for us to study and discuss in class.
I remember being handed the white pages with purple ink, reeking of alcohol-based duplicating fluid, as the prelude to a pivotal moment in my life. King’s message enlightened and inspired me, as it did so many Americans, and evoked anger, resentment and hatred in many others, just as had so much of his life's work for peace and justice. But it was, indeed, time to break the silence... the silence within ourselves as much as the silence of our lips.
A few weeks ago, a throng of Oregonians gathered to join each other in breaking that deadly wall of silence which has encompassed us yet again. We raised our voices in the parks and streets of Portland, young and old, rich and poor, representing the increasingly diverse population of our state. As one, we echoed the message of Peace Now, filled at once with the exuberance of finding ourselves not alone in the struggle, and the sadness that our country is once again embroiled in so tragic and unnecessary a military debacle.
But King’s message was not just about taking to the streets, nor even solely about the folly of a particular war or kind of war. Nor were his remarks crafted solely to inform the consciences of his listeners about the cause of peace.
His "Vietnam Speech", and his whole life, embodied justice and equality, of which the fight against imperialistic military interventionism was only a part. As lofty and inspiring as was his oratory, his words and deeds always also included a call to very practical action... for nondiscrimination legislation, for defunding military interventionism, for providing for the poor, for protecting the most vulnerable amognst us.
As involved as I am in Democratic Party politics, I am even more committed to the ideals I began to form in that public school classroom so long ago, and which I think should — and sometimes do — form the basis of the party’s broad coalition.
However, I have no illusions that the struggle which was led so ably by Martin Luther King and others who have shared their prophetic vision in this country, will be settled by electing Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton, Jeff Merkley or Steve Novick. It is not going to be enough just to prevent John McCain from taking office, or remove Gordon Smith from his seat — Our Seat as Oregonians — in the United States Senate.
What has followed since our incredible electoral gains in 2006, as time and again Democrats in Congress have voted to continue funding the military occupation in Iraq, and failed to fund initiatives to address basic human needs of our people, or the real threat of looming environmental catastrophe, should have taught us that electing Democrats is important, but more is needed to be done.
That’s why I am working as a member of the Oregon state coordinating team of Progressive Democrats of America to organize our rapidly growing membership of over three thousand citizen activists into local chapters for mobilization within and outside of the party and its official structures, to keep the issues of the Progressive Challenge from being eclipsed by whatever the pundits and media giants may choose as the topic of any given day; to not only elect progressive Democrats, but to hold them accountable — supporting their efforts for progressive change, but calling them out when they shrink from that duty.
That’s why I believe more than three thousand Oregonians have joined us as members, and many have already signed our Healthcare Not Warfare petition online, or at tables staffed by Progressive Democrats of Oregon local chapters. Together with signators around the country, and the elected Democratic House members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, they are calling on the Democratic Party at every level, and the Democratic members of both houses of Congress to bring the troops home from Iraq and to pass H.R. 676, Rep. John Conyers' bill which guarantees comprehensive publicly-funded, privately-delivered health care for everyone in the U.S.
As we approach the heat of the final days of the Oregon primary season, and the general election which will follow, let’s once again heed the call of visionaries like the late Dr. King to not only smash every last vestige of the wall of silence, but to prevent its ever encompassing us again.
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"Hat Tip" to regular DailyKos diarist TeacherKen for the link to the full text of Dr. King's speech, which he included in his eloquent commentary on it, "A time comes when silence is betrayal."
While I was drafting this, Jeff Cohen posted an article on the same theme enitled, "40 Years Later, (The Late) Martin Luther King Still Silenced" to the front page of the PDA website.
UPDATE I (4:59 PM PDT) -- I figured out what I was doing wrong with the IMG tag, and added the photos and graphics. While I was at it I cleaned up a couple of typos.
UPDATE II (5:24 PM PDT) -- For non-Oregonian readers, I added a link to a Portland journalist's blog post about the Merkley-Novick race, and the Wikipedia article on my small town, and corrected tense agreement in one sentence.
UPDATE III (8:35 PM PDT) -- added YouTube clip of an excerpt from the MLK speech which I just received in an email blast from Nita Chaudhary at MoveOn to its members.
