Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Tribute – 2017

This week on From the Vault, we celebrate the life and work of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. with two speeches he gave near the end of his life – two speeches that rarely get much attention.

By 1967, Dr. Martin Luther King’s strategy for organizing had evolved beyond just the Civil Rights Movement; he clearly saw how resources that could be helping the poor communities were being absorbed by the country’s military budget. King began strategizing for a broader-based Poor People’s Campaign that transcended Black communities, and instead focused outreach on any American who poor, regardless of race.

You will this topic discussed our first selection, a February 25th, 1967 address titled The Casualties of the War in Vietnam, which was sponsored by the Nation Magazine at a Nation Institute Conference in Los Angeles. Our second selection, titled Luncheon Address at California Democratic Council, shares a similar thread and was given in Anaheim, California on March 16, 1968, just weeks before his assassination.

From the Vault is presented as part of the Pacifica Radio Archives Preservation and Access Project, funded in part by an award from the GRAMMY Foundation and the National Historical Publications and Records Commission at the National Archives and Records Administration, and past grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Ford Foundation, and the American Archive funded by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, along with the generous support of Pacifica Radio Listeners. We also thank our partners and collaborators at the Pop-Up Archive, Amara, Other Minds Archives, George Blood Audio, and the California Audio Visual Preservation Project.

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