Nonviolence or Nonexistence? The Legacy of Martin Luther King Jr.
NOVANEWS
By Robert J. Burrowes
Global Research
Fifty years ago, on 4 April 1968, the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr.was assassinated.
The night before he died, King gave another of his many evocative speeches; this one at the packed Mason Temple in Memphis. The speech included these words:
‘Men for years now have been talking about war and peace. Now no longer can they just talk about it. It is no longer a choice between violence and non-violence in this world, it is non-violence or non-existence. That is where we are today.’
In clearly identifying this stark choice and having been inspired by Mohandas K. Gandhi’s wide-ranging social concerns, King’s concerns were also broad:
‘The Triple Evils of poverty, racism and militarism are forms of violence that exist in a vicious cycle...