Public participatory readings of MLK’s historic ‘Beyond Vietnam’ speech April 4 will support Poor People’s Campaign statewide mobilization efforts
Subject
Public readings of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s prophetic “Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence” speech are scheduled for Monday, April 4.
An in-person reading will be in the University Union Ballroom at Sacramento State, 6000 J St. Sacramento CA 95819. A virtual reading will follow in the evening.
A news conference will precede the in-person event.
The Sacramento event is co-hosted by the Sacramento Poor People’s Campaign and Sacramento State’s Center on Race, Immigration and Social Justice (CRISJ).
Statewide, the California Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival is encouraging communities to participate in the planning, coordination, mobilization, and implementation of various in-person and virtual public readings of Dr. King’s speech on April 4.
Why This Speech?
On April 4, 1967, exactly one year before his tragic assassination, Dr. King declared in his speech: “A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.” He then called the United States government the greatest purveyor of violence in the world and said that nonviolent direct action is our greatest hope and best tool to bring about the changes we seek.
This year’s public readings of that speech are part of the California Poor People’s Campaign’s mobilization toward the June 18, 2022, Mass Poor People’s & Low-Wage Workers’ Assembly and Moral March on Washington and to the Polls. The march will be a generationally transformative gathering of poor and low-wealth people, state leaders, faith communities, moral allies, unions, and partnering organizations.
Immediately following the public reading, CRISJ will host its third annual Community Empowerment Faire. The faire hosts community partners who offer Sac State students volunteer, internship, and service-learning opportunities.
Faire goals are to help students feel a sense of purpose by addressing issues that matter to them; motivate them to give back to their communities; and offer them opportunities to apply their academic knowledge in the field, and to determine what works and what does not in the service of social and environmental justice.
Finally, a virtual public participatory reading of the speech will be presented at 6:30 p.m. Hosted by the Sacramento Poor People’s Campaign, the reading will feature impacted community members, local high school students, college students, mothers, fathers, grandparents, educators, artists, poets, writers, and local community activists.
People who wish to participate or view the reading may register online. Registrants will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the public reading via Zoom.
April 4 Schedule
10:30 a.m.: Event kick-off press conference in the University Union Ballroom at Sacramento State, 6000 J St. Sacramento CA 95819.
11 a.m.: Public reading of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s 1967 speech “Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence.” Readers will be members of the local community, including Sacramento State students, faculty, and staff.
Noon – 3 p.m.: Community Empowerment Faire in the University Union Ballroom.
6:30 p.m.: Virtual public participatory reading of Dr. King’s “Beyond Vietnam” speech.
Contacts
- For the 10:30 a.m. news conference: Faye Wilson Kennedy, fayek@springail.com
- For the 11 a.m. public reading: Mario Galvan, mario@zsc.org, or Cathleen Williams, cathleen@markmerin.com
- For the noon- 3 p.m. Community Empowerment Faire: Dr. Manuel Barajas barajasm@csus.edu
The Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival has picked up Dr. King’s unfinished work challenging the interlocking injustices of systemic racism, systemic poverty, environmental devastation, militarism and the war economy and a distorted moral narrative of Christian nationalism, into one “moral fusion” campaign.
