April 3, 2009, Beyond War: A New Economy is Possible Memorial to Dr. King and to Justice.

April 4, 1967,  Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., at Riverside Church in New York City, decried the Vietnam War and the impact of the war on the poor of the United States in the speech entitled "Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence". Calling the U.S. government the "greatest purveyor of violence in the world today",  Dr. King called for resistance to the "evil triplets" of U.S. society:  "racism, materialism, and militarism."  It was a King that was moving ahead in justice, making the connections that go deeper and resonate louder and longer in history. One year later to the day, on April 4, 1968, Dr. King  in Memphis, TN supporting striking striking sanitation workers, was shot down on the balconey of the Lorraine Motel. 

In past years, the Brandywine Peace Community has held memorials around the anniversary of the assassination of Dr. King in which we made connection to the historical importance and instruction that we needed to make today in the words and example of Dr. King.  This year, in connection with the plans of United for Peace & Justice (UFPJ) for a April 4 national march on Wall Street calling for a new economy and a new resolve to end the wars and occupations in Iraq and Afghanistan.  The theme, paralleling the themes and title of Dr. King's speech of April 4, 1967, was "Beyond War: A New Economy is Possible!"   We decided to have an area event in Philadelphia as well around the theme of "Beyond War: A New Economy is Possible!" 

Again it was raining and again we were under the archways at the west side of Phila. City Hall.  The speakers, see the program and litany below, included the organizer of the speech by Dr. King 42 years ago in New York City.  We remembered and honored the words of Dr. King in audio broadcast as well as a litany of memorial to Dr. King and to justice.

Stop the Wars  Beyond Iraq, Beyond Afghanistan...

BEYOND WAR: A New Economy is Possible!

Memorial for Justice

Honoring the Legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

 

Rabbi Arthur Waskow, director of the Shalom Center, author and activist, influential progressive Jewish visionary; Celeste Zappala, Gold Star Mother for Peace, whose son, PA National Guard Sergeant Sherwood R. Baker, was killed five years ago this month in Iraq; Rev. Richard (Dick) Fernandez, United Church of Christ retired minister, who for twenty-one years served as  director of the Northwest InterFaith Movement (now: Neighborhood Interfaith Ministry) and who in 1967, as Executive Director of Clergy & Laity Concerned, was the lead organizer of Dr. King's historic speech at Riverside Church. Susan Windle, founder of the poetry ensemble Voices of a Different Dream and author of "Between the Doors and Love Letters"; Tom Mullian ("Six Strings Against the War")          

 

A Litany of Living Memorial for Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (adapted by Bob Smith, from a litany written by Rev. Patricia Pierce)

 

“...A true revolution of values will lay hands on the world order and say of war: This way of settling differences is not just.  This business of burning human being with napalm, of filling our nation’s homes with orphans and widows, of injecting poisonous drugs of hate into the veins of peoples normally humane, of sending men home from dark and bloody battlefields physically handicapped and psychologically deranged, cannot be reconciled with wisdom, justice, and love.  A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death…” - Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., “Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence”, Riverside Church, April 4, 1967

 

Reader: For each vibrant life and hopeful dream annihilated by war and written off as collateral damage, All: We lift up the ashes of our pain.

 

Reader: For the millions upon millions of people here and around the world who are homeless, without a job, go hungry or suffer sickness without the assured right to health care because bombs are more of a priority than human and economic rights, All: We lift up the ashes of our remorse.

 

Reader: For each mind that is forever haunted and each body that is left broken by war, All: We lift up the ashes of our grief.

 

Reader: For wars in which soldiers become pawns, veterans become burdens, and increasing numbers of our citizens simply become domestic casualties of war: jobless, homeless, hopeless,  All: We lift up the ashes of our shame.

 

All: O God, May the ashes of our remorse in this time of war and economic cruelty be a plea to make fertile the soil of our future, nourish the seeds of peace, and help us to realize that a new world is possible.[sprinkle ashes onto black cloth: WAR  POVERTY]

 

“...As I have walked among the desperate, rejected, and angry men I have told them that Molotov cocktails and rifles would not solve their problems.  I have tried to offer them my deepest compassion while maintaining my conviction that social change comes most meaningfully through nonviolent action.  But they asked - and rightly so - what about Vietnam?  They asked if our own nation wasn’t using massive doses of violence to solve its problems...Their questions hit home, and I knew that I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed ...without having first spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today - my own government...For the sake of the hundreds of thousands trembling under our violence, I cannot be silent.”  - Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., “Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence”, Riverside Church, April 4, 1967

 

Reader: For homes and communities reduced to rubble, and citizens who are cast out as refugees or just unwanted, All: We lift up the stones of our anger.

 

Reader: For our captivity to a narrative of violence, from handgun violence and the slaughter in our streets to nuclear weapons threatening worldwide slaughter. For allowing our children to be taught violence and lured into the culture of war at such a place as the Army Experience Center in the Franklin Mills Mall, All: We lift up the stones of our hardness.

 

Reader: For our nation in which money is readily available for warfare and weapons builders, like Lockheed Martin and Boeing, and while the very term security is used synonymously with weapons and military might: not with jobs, universal health care, healthy communities, education, a non-toxic environment, a future, All: We lift up the stones of our arrogance.

 

Reader: For hiding our fears and the fear of vulnerability behind the bravado of empire and military might, All: We lift up the stones of our fear.

 

All: O Creator, As we cast off these stones hear our plea that our hearts will be opened to greater compassion, and that our commitment to justice and to peace can be the building blocks for a fully just society and world at peace [place stones on coffin cloth: WAR  POVERTY]

 

“...Our only hope today lies in our ability to recapture the revolutionary spirit and go out into a sometimes hostile world declaring eternal hostility to poverty, racism, and militarism.  With this powerful commitment we shall boldly challenge the status quo and unjust mores and thereby speed the day when “every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall be made straight and the rough places plain.”  Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., “Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence”, Riverside Church, April 4, 1967

 

Reader: For the growing awareness that war sacrifices the future, cripples societies and economies, and has no place in a sane or rational world order, All: We lift up the flower of our hope.

 

Reader: For the capacity within the human spirit to imagine another’s grief and the needs of community as one's own, All: We lift up the flower of our compassion.

 

Reader: For the communities of nonviolence and peace that confront what Dr. King called the evil triplets of our society: racism, materialism, and militarism, that call us to Dr. King's vision of social justice and peace and to a world that must be if we are to live, All: We lift up the flower of our resolve

 

Reader: For the millions of people across the planet who activate imaginations and join together in the works of nonviolence and peace, social and economic reconstruction, and make a living memorial to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and his beloved community of justice and peace, All: We lift up the flower of our strength,

 

All: O Transforming One, As we cast these flowers onto the darkness of war and militarism, of the fears, loss, and suffering of our time, may our plea be that the power of the beloved community and our living remembrance of Dr. King will blossom into a future of beauty, justice and peace. [place flowers on coffin cloth: WAR POVERTY]

 

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