my third reason moves to an even deeper level of awareness, for it grows out of my experience in the ghettoes of the north over the last three years -- especially the last three summers. as i have walked among the desperate, rejected, and angry young 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 ask -- and rightly so -- what about vietnam? they ask if our own nation wasn't using massive doses of violence to solve its problems, to bring about the changes it wanted. their questions hit home, and 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. for the sake of those boys, for the sake of this government, for the sake of the hundreds of thousands trembling under our violence, i cannot be silent.
for those who ask the question, "aren't you a civil rights leader?" and thereby mean to exclude me from the movement for peace, i have this further answer. in 1957 when a group of us formed the southern christian leadership conference, we chose as our motto: "to save the soul of america." we were convinced that we could not limit our vision to certain rights for black people, but instead affirmed the conviction that america would never be free or saved from itself until the descendants of its slaves were loosed completely from the shackles they still wear. in a way we were agreeing with langston hughes, that black bard of harlem, who had written earlier:
now, it should be incandescently clear that no one who has any concern for the integrity and life of america today can ignore the present war. if america's soul becomes totally poisoned, part of the autopsy must read: vietnam. it can never be saved so long as it destroys the deepest hopes of men the world over. so it is that those of us who are yet determined that america will be are led down the path of protest and dissent, working for the health of our land.
as if the weight of such a commitment to the life and health of america were not enough, another burden of responsibility was placed upon me in 1954** [sic]; and i cannot forget that the nobel prize for peace was also a commission -- a commission to work harder than i had ever worked before for "the brotherhood of man." this is a calling that takes me beyond national allegiances, but even if it were not present i would yet have to live with the meaning of my commitment to the ministry of jesus christ. 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'm speaking against the war. could it be that they do not know that the good news was meant for all men -- for communist and capitalist, for their children and ours, for black and for white, for revolutionary and conservative? have they forgotten that my ministry is in obedience to the one who loved his enemies so fully that he died for them? what then can i say to the vietcong or to castro or to mao as a faithful minister of this one? can i threaten them with death or must i not share with them my life?