In the little less than an hour left of 4 April, I thought I should mention this as I haven't seen it anywhere else.
On this day in 1968, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was assinated. Now, this was shocking and tramatic for many people, but what is particuarily interesting is that he was killed a year to the
hour after the end of his Beyond Vietnam: Breaking the Silence speech. He was very much opposed to the Vietnam "conflict", and this generated major outcry against him (including Time magazine calling the speech "demagogic slander that sounded like a script for Radio Hanoi," and the Washington Post declaring that King had "diminished his usefulness to his cause, his country, his people"). The transcript, and audio file, of this speech can be found
here. If you choose to listen to it, be warned that it is about an hour long.
Now, when MLK was assinated, Robert Kennedy was campaning for President of the United States. He arrived in Indiana and was told the news, hours before he was supposed to give a speech. Police advised against making his apperance that night, but he chose to do so anyway. Once on stage, Kennedy broke the news of MLK's death to a crowd that loved him dearly, and you can hear everyone go silent. Kennedy spoke of what MLK's death would mean to the country, and to the people. He included poetry, which I now give to you.
My favorite poet was Aeschylus. He once wrote: "Even in our sleep, pain which cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart, until, in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom through the aweful grace of God."
You can find the audio and full transcript of this speech
here.
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