Martin Luther King, Jr. is one of the most influential people of this century. People remember King for his humanity, leadership and his love of his fellow man regardless of their skin color. Through reading King's writings and speeches, that changed the world, one can learn that his values of integrity, love, truth, fairness, caring, non-violence, and peace were what motivated him to greatness. One of his less known speeches is "A Time to Break the Silence", this speech was different than most of King's speeches; the theme of this speech is not civil rights movement, but Vietnam. King addresses the war in Vietnam and he gives reasons why it should not continue.

He asserts that Vietnam War has hindered the Civil Rights movement to achieve its goals. He expounds that the military drafted young black man to protect the rights of people of Vietnam and yet, these black youngsters did not have freedom for themselves. He says, " We were taking black young men who had been crippled by our society and sending them 8,000 miles away to guarantee liberties in Southeast Asia which they had not found in Southwest Georgia and East Harlem. So, we have been repeatedly faced with the cruel iron

Furthermore, he gave addition reason of why he was speaking out. He say, "As I walked among the desperate, rejected and angry young men, I have told them that Molotov cocktails and rifles would not solve their problems.... But they asked-and rightly so- what about Vietnam? They asked if our own nation wasn't using massing doses of violence to solve its problems, to bring about the changes it wanted." King was the messenger of peace and if he had not spoken against the tragedy of Vietnam, some people might have called a hypocrite, who is the preacher of peace and does not address the greatest example of violence. He wanted people to remember him not as a hypocrite. Furthermore, King's conscious would not forgive him if he had not spoken for the suffering people of Vietnam.

In addition, he says that the sacrifices made in Vietnam are in vein. King expounds, "This business of burning human beings with napalm, of lifting our nation's homes with orphans and widow, of injection poisonous drugs of hate into the veins of peoples normally humane, of sending men home from the dark and bloody battlefields physically handicapped and psychologically deranged, cannot be reconciled with wisdom, just and love." He means that war is not answer for anything; war brings suffering to both sides. The sacrifices of the people are for nothing; the soldiers of the United States are giving life

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Approximate Word count = 932
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)