Vincent Harding (1931-2014)

The author of Martin Luther King's 1967 speech linking racism and militarism in Vietnam and America, Vincent Harding, has died.  The speech, "A Time to Break Silence",  was not well received and called everything from a serious tactical error to treason.  But Harding's words spoke the truth about war and racism.

From the obituary:

The 1967 speech condemning the Vietnam War, Dr. Harding said, was not an anomaly but was a pure reflection of King’s evolving views of the role of civil rights on the world stage.

 “For those who seek a gentle, nonabrasive hero whose recorded speeches can be used as inspirational resources for rocking our memories to sleep,” Dr. Harding told the National Catholic Reporter in 1997, “Martin Luther King Jr. is surely the wrong man.”

Godspeed, Dr. Harding