Usamah “Sam” Husseini

As corporate media disseminate the image of Martin Luther King as a "dreamer" who simply worked for the rights of "his people," activists, especially those around the occupy movement should get information out about the real Martin Luther King. 

Here's a PDF that people can print and pass out at places of work and worship; on the street or at the parks: "Martin Luther King Denounced Racism -- and Militarism and Exploitation." Audio from his strongest speeches and sermons is available to be played over local radio stations and streamed online. At a recent demonstration in DC, an activist streamed a speech over a phone and blared it through a loudspeaker. 

King first came out publicly against the Vietnam War at the Riverside Church in New York on April 4, 1967, a year to the day before he was killed: 

"A few years ago there was a shining moment in that struggle. It seemed as if there was a real promise of hope for the poor -- both black and white -- through the poverty program. There were experiments, hopes, new beginnings. Then came the buildup in Vietnam, and I watched this program broken and eviscerated, as if it were some idle political plaything of a society gone mad on war, and I knew that America would never invest the necessary funds or energies in rehabilitation of its poor so long as adventures like Vietnam continued to draw men and skills and money like some demonic destructive suction tube. ..." He noted that if militarism was not seriously addressed, people would be trying to stop future wars in countless other countries. See full text and audio.

After his Riverside address, King was widely attacked by the U.S. establishment media. Rather than backtracking, he responded even more strongly on April 30, 1967 at the Ebenezer Baptist Church: "I knew that I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed in the ghettos without having first spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today -- my own government. ..." 

He then addressed his critics, especially the corporate media: "There is something strangely inconsistent about a nation and a press that would praise you when you say, 'Be nonviolent toward [segregationist sheriff] Jim Clark' but will curse and damn you when you say, 'Be nonviolent toward little brown Vietnamese children' There is something wrong with that press! ... To me, the relationship of this ministry to the making of peace is so obvious that I sometimes marvel at those who ask me why I am speaking against the war. ..." 

He also articulated a broad moral critique of the established economic order: "I'm convinced that if we are to get on the right side of the world revolution, we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. ... When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, militarism and economic exploitation are incapable of being conquered. A true revolution of values will soon cause us to question the fairness and justice of many of our present policies. ... True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar. A true revolution of values will soon look uneasily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth with righteous indignation. ..." See full text and audio.