爱国演讲稿：百年沉寂[5篇范例]

第一篇：爱国演讲稿：百年沉寂

爱国演讲稿：百年沉寂

从盘古开天辟地开始，就昭示着我们从混沌走向了文明。五千多年以来，我们中国人秉承着传承文明，开拓创新的信仰创造了一个又一个世界奇迹。

不论是商代的司母戊鼎，还是秦朝的兵马俑都见证了我们的精湛铸造技能。我们的祖先在人类铸造史上不断的刷新世界记录，比如四羊方尊，龙虎尊等等这些我们所引以为傲的铸件精品。我们拥有六千年铸造历史，远远超出西方人一千多年。因为我们从远古时期就拥有了领先世界的铸造技术，这也是为我们提高我们的使用工具做出了强有力的技术支持。在那个遥远的时代我们就利用各供青铜，或者铁制工具来耕作，大大提高了我们的生产力。这为我们的文化发展提供了一个非常有利的保障，而且不断改进的陶瓷制作工艺和技术也为我们改变生存工具和提高文化生活提供了良的基础。因为工具是进步的关键，而技术是革新的前提。

在五千年的历史进程中，我们的工具提供了我们民族文化不断发展的良好基础。因为工具的先进，所以才有了许多让人惊叹的制造。阿房宫的传奇美丽，莫高窟的美轮美奂，雁塔的虔诚精妙，拙政园的精雕细刻，都江堰的精巧周密，乃至金碧辉煌的故宫，这些无不让我们感受到我们悠久文化的魅力与精纯。

数千年来，我们一直走在世界文明的前列。夏商时代我们就拥有了最科学的历法，准确的掌握了时令；张衡发明了地震仪，为预测地震做出了科学推理；祖冲之精确的测量了圆周率，并且将它精确到了小数点后七位等等，我们还有名扬世界的四大发明------造纸术，指南针，火药和活字印刷。科技的领先，成就了我们的强大。这些智慧的结晶，使得我们伟大的民族引导着这个世界的发展方向。这不仅仅是科技和文化的见证，也是我们伟大民族的智慧。

或许，我们走的太急；或许，我们走的太匆忙。在十六世纪的岔路口，我们突然间迷失了我们前进的方向。我们伟大的民族突然间失去了引领世界的王者风范，没有了以往的霸气和风貌。总是在沉默，总是在迷茫，总是徘徊，总是在寻找。

瓦特发明了蒸汽机，改变了欧洲的制造业。在日益发展壮大了工业技术时代，我们却淡漠了。我们依然坐着天朝大国的美梦。以至于乾隆道出那句“天朝物产丰盈，无所不有，原不藉外夷货物以通有无”。当八国联军侵华，在曾经誉为铜墙铁壁的紫禁城里烧杀掳掠；当一箱箱的鸦片蚕食着我们那些气血方刚的铮铮男儿；当我们的国土被瓜分被掠夺。而我们只是在默默的退让，忍耐，屈辱和仇恨在那一幕幕中交织着。

1840年，我们无法忘记的年份，那一年，我们用我们虚弱的身形和残留的意志来保卫我们的国家，保全我们的尊严。但是我们失败了，我们屈辱的签订《南京条约》，但是噩梦并没有因此而结束。一切也才刚刚开始。1937年，我们怎能忘记，30万，这个血淋淋的数字，我们的同胞，我们的国民，在数日之间就被丧心病狂的小日本剑杀掳掠。我们还能忍耐么，我们还可以眼睁睁的看着自己的兄弟姐妹就这样离去？不，不能。我们已经不能退缩了，我们已经无路可退，我们已经忍无可忍。鲜血刺痛了我们的心灵，点燃了我们心中的怒火与仇恨。

在血与恨的深渊里，我们沸腾的血液，燃烧的怒火，我们用摧枯拉朽的力量战胜了这个梦想大东亚共荣的无耻国家------日本。

让我们来到1949年，10月1日，那一声简洁而又气势磅礴的话语：中华人民共和国在今天成立了，中国人民从此站起来了。这句话久久的飘荡在我们每个中国人的心中。因为这句话唤起了我们强烈的民族自豪感，因为从这一天起，我们所做的一切都证明了我们永远是这个星球上最伟大的民族。

1964年在那个艰苦的时代，我们用最简单的工具制造出了原子弹，1997年，阔别百年的香港回归祖国。2012年我们国家GDp总额跃居世界第二，我们日益发展的国家，我们日益强大的民族，或许我们发现了，全世界都是中国制造。

是的，面对连续的经济增长，不断提高的国际实力，全世界已经没有办法阻挡我们的不断强大。奥运会，世博会，世园会，博鳌论坛等等我们都是在见证我们国家的强盛和民族的兴旺。

当我们的军舰在亚丁湾护航，在那蔚蓝的海域飘扬着鲜艳的五星红旗；当我们的维和部队在黎巴嫩，那金色的帽徽跳动着中国的精彩；当我们再次遭遇日本，当这个无耻的国家再次窃取我们的国土，我们强有力的呼出：还我钓鱼岛。我们不再是那个任人宰割的东亚病夫，我们已经崛起，我们已经崛起。

亿万人的梦想，千百年的梦想。在一代代炎黄子孙的不懈努力下我们向着梦想，这个魂牵梦萦的大国梦想奔跑，我们向这个世界展示了我们伟大民族的不屈不挠。百转千回，我们不断探索，不断创新，不断的用我们勤劳的双手打造我们美丽的祖国。

我是中国人，我爱中国。

第二篇：沉寂近义词是什么

沉寂是非常寂静的意思。以下是“沉寂近义词”，希望能够帮助的到您！

沉寂的近义词 ：

清静

寂然

冷静

寂寞

宁静

寂寥

默默

沉默

安静

冷清

岑寂

寂静

僻静

肃静

沉静

沉寂造句

1）沉寂多时的飆车恶风死灰复燃，让警方十分头痛。

2）最近一段时间，在外地打工的哥哥音讯沉寂，家人焦急万分。

3）沉寂已久的色情理发业又死灰复燃了。

4）沉寂多时的飙车恶风死灰复燃，让警方十分头痛。

5）突然间，战场变得十分沉寂起来。

6）中国目前最需要的，并不仅仅是言论的内容，更需要的，是敢于言论的勇气。你哪怕只是一声微弱的呐喊，也宣告了沉寂的终结。要问有用没用吗？答案是：世界上并不是所有的事情都按有用没用来衡量的。

7）青春就是匆匆披挂上阵，末了战死沙场。你为谁冲锋陷阵，谁为你捡拾骸骨，剩下依旧在河流中漂泊的刀痕，沉寂在水面之下，只有自己看得见。

8）现在的未来，也许还重复着年少时经历的故事，可我的心却在历经沧桑之后学会的淡然，学会了沉寂。这不是消极，只是站在更高的位置来看待生活。

9）突然间，战场变得十分沉寂起来。

10）幸福，是一杯茉莉飘香的清茶。沸腾之后皈依平静，漂浮之后还原沉寂；馥郁的浓烈不再张扬，华丽转身尽洗铅华。

11）当叶子独自落下的时候：它不仅仅辞离了小树枝，还辞去了夏日的火热，那是一份热情；辞去了一个生命，那是一份热忱。它孤独了……无所依偎、无所牵绊……一颗心在风中飘荡，最终沉寂了、灭亡了。

12）我听见帝都传来的钟声，于都城中古月遥相呼应，那曾经有过的繁荣和梦想，一点一滴，积攒于心。天上的星星，地上的眼睛，雾散，梦醒，我终于看清真相，那是千帆过尽的沉寂。

13）时间和空间是在旋转中归于沉寂的。沉寂就意味着，我意识到我做了什么。

14）在前三场比赛的沉寂之后，刘易斯在第四战表现异常突出。

15）我在静寂中走进厨房，冰箱里面明亮而拥挤，就像远处闹市中的林荫大道。我取出一瓶啤酒，在餐桌旁坐下来，神情严肃地喝了起来。那边，在夜的沉寂中，透明的塑料胡椒研磨机静静地凝视着我。奥尔罕·帕慕克

16）造 句 网是一部在线造句词典，其宗旨是让大家更快地造出更优质的句子。

17）夜晚的街与景一同归于黑暗。行驶在高速上，远方的村落闪着微弱的光，但仍然像是死去般地沉寂。未来像是一场脱胎换骨的旅行。前方是什么方向。路要怎样延伸呢。河唐先生

18）他穿过这座巨型建筑物投下的憧憧黑影，来到那个空荡沉寂的竞技台。

19）他沉寂了一段时间之后，现在又名声大振了。

20）你知道吗，有时，就像今天这种沉寂、安静的夜晚，我几乎有一种毛骨悚然的想法，那就是他们全都会从那扇窗户中跳进来。

21）超世洋服从辉煌到沉寂的过程，是湖南纺织服装行业的整体低迷。

22）星星的帐篷下，一个孤独的人穿越午夜的沉寂而行。男孩醒来，迷失于他的梦，他的灰色的脸在月光中沉没。特拉克尔

23）这些既有传统基础又标新出奇的结构发展手法，使得这部钢琴奏鸣曲沉寂多年但终被人认可，成为钢琴文献中不可或缺的作品，它对后来音乐结构思维模式的发展具有重要的影响。

24）声响只发生在沉寂赤道的双方，因为运动存在于赤道的双方，而在未分离的赤道上纯粹不存在运动。

25）十几分钟后，这个村镇又沉寂下来了，村上的醉鬼们又靠在滑动垫木上睡着了。

26）他说：“我能感觉到气氛十分紧张：开始几秒死一般的沉寂后，人们开始大声哭喊。”。

27）夏夜的山塘灯火阑珊，岸上的路人走走停停，无边的遐思沉寂在夜色中。

28）我掀开黑夜沉寂的幔帐，任一轮浑圆洒进我的窗口。

29）在可怕的沉寂中，达林太太闻了闻那只盆。

30）沉寂已久的西工图书馆英语沙龙又和朋友们见面啦！欢迎朋友们！

31）妇人抬头一望，她那咆哮如雷的嗓子突然沉寂下去了。

32）空钟，死鸟，在沉寂的屋内，九点，大地浑然不动，仿佛有人叹息，树木像在微笑，叶端水滴颤抖，一朵云穿过黑夜，门前一人高歌，窗打开了无声无息。皮埃尔·勒韦迪

33）沉寂两月有余的公司债一级发行市场出现“破冰”。

34）但是，股票期权在前几年被介绍到中国之后，曾在1999年、2000年伴随着美国那斯达克指数和香港创业板出现过一阵热潮，但后又归于沉寂。

第三篇：沉寂的反义词（推荐4篇）

写写帮会员为你精心整理了4篇《沉寂的反义词》的范文，但愿对你的工作学习带来帮助，希望你能喜欢！

篇一：沉寂的反义词

词语：沉寂

【沉寂的反义词】(以下词语任选其一)

哗笑；鼎沸；喧嚣；喧闹；

附录词语（沉寂）的相关知识：

【沉寂的意思】

①（形容词）基本义：没有声息；十分寂静。；②（形容词）消息全无。

【沉寂的例句】

晚上热闹一天的广场沉寂下来。（作谓语）沉寂的夜晚。（作定语）

【沉寂的近义词】(以下词语任选其一)

岑寂；冷清；宁静；僻静；安静；肃静；寂静；沉静；默默；寂寥；寂寞；寂然；清静；冷静；沉默；沉着冷静；

篇二：沉寂的反义词

【沉寂解释】：

①十分安静：万籁沉寂｜沉寂的午夜。

②没有任何消息：音讯沉寂。

③性情深沉：他神色沉寂。

近义词：寂静，沉静，寂然，肃静，安静，宁静

反义词：喧闹，鼎沸，喧嚣

相似词：死气沉沉，暮气沉沉，黑沉沉，阴沉沉，寂寞，静寂，冷寂，寂然

用沉寂造句：

1、酒吧里变得死一般沉寂。然后突然欢呼声响成一片。

2、他的声音渐趋沉寂。

3、沉寂多时的飙车恶风死灰复燃，让警方十分头痛。

4、在沉寂了6个月之后，这些内容终于有了重大的更新。

5、但现在，这地方已废弃，只剩一片可怕的沉寂。

6、当演奏结束的时候，大厅里一阵可怕的沉寂。

7、即使他想要叫停，他的`雇主也会派出另一名杀手来让他彻底沉寂。

8、突然间，战场变得十分沉寂起来。

9、当这段音乐最终结束，四周回归沉寂时，一种满足感拂过我的身心。通过顽强的坚持和不懈的联系，我最终得到了这种满足。

10、独处的沉寂向他们揭露他们赤裸的自我，于是他们逃逸。

11、外面是灯火和喧哗；这里只有夜晚的沉寂。

12、沉寂已久的色情理发业又死灰复燃了。

13、长长的沉寂之后，其中一个挖掘者从洞里拿出一个装满蜘蛛、蠕虫和各种各样昆虫的罐子，他打开盖子把这些奇妙的东西展示给那些嘲讽者看。

14、最近一段时间，在外地打工的哥哥音讯沉寂，家人焦急万分。

15、周日，数千人光临了曾经沉寂的北川城郊，几乎让这里有了节日的气氛。

16、夜色沉寂，偶尔有几只萤火虫在飞来飞去。

17、既然这里已经不会再有我沉闷的脚步声了，这片沉寂就更加显得讽刺。

18、在这种情况下，一旦在某一断层发生地震，震完也就结束了，但这也意味着，该区域其它现在似乎沉寂的断层仍可能被触发。

19、“我不行了，”他说，声音很微弱，我几乎听不到他的声音，后来，他的呼吸渐渐消失了，电话那端死一般沉寂。

20、终于，在上周，在沉寂了一个月之后，我又一次听到了窗外的喧闹声，一阵接一阵的传来。

21、但我的船长还在静候着我的沉寂。

22、在经过几乎沉寂的数年后，战争中劳工的参与遗迹最终在中国和欧洲吸引了人们的注意。

23、终于这场阴惨惨的沉寂被厨房门闩的响声打破了：希刺克厉夫守夜回来了，比平时早一点；我猜，是由于这场突来的风雪的缘故。

24、如今，改革的声音几乎沉寂了。

25、这个荒岛是一片美丽的地地，沉寂，辽阔。

篇三：沉寂的反义词

一、【反义词】

喧闹、鼎沸、喧嚣

二、【基本解释】

[释义]

(1) (形)基本义：没有声息;十分寂静。

(2) (形)消息全无。

[构成]

偏正式：沉〔寂

[例句]

晚上热闹一天的广场沉寂下来。(作谓语)沉寂的夜晚。(作定语)

三、【英文翻译】

1.(十分寂静) dead; quiet; still

2.(引伸为消息全无) no news

四、【短语造句】

1. 我们尊重地等待她打破沉寂。

2. 风已经停止，一切归于沉寂。

3. 一切都死一般的沉寂。

4. 周围一点动静都没有，一片沉寂。

5. 只有画笔在画布上的挥洒打破沉寂。

6. 这沉寂令人可怕。

7. 正交轨线的问题一直处于沉寂状态。

8. 只有子弹的呼啸声冲破着夜的沉寂。

9. 海水沉寂而阴郁。

10. 又是裘丽姑姑打破这种沉寂的局面。

五、【详细解释】

◎ 沉寂 chénjì

(1) [quiet;still;silent]∶非常寂静

小街上霎时间沉寂起来。——柳青《创业史》

(2) [no news]∶杳无音讯

消息沉寂

篇四：沉寂的近义词和反义词有哪些

沉寂的近义词

宁静：①安定;安宁：宁静四海|地方宁静。 ②安静;平宁静

清静：1.指天气晴朗宁静。 2.指心性纯正恬静。 清静

安静：①没有声音;没有吵闹和喧哗;病人需要～。 ②安安静

寂静：没有声音 ;很静：～无声。寂静

沉默：①寂静：全场一片沉默。 ②不发声，不说话：沉默沉默

冷静：①人少而静;不热闹：夜深了，街上显得很～。 ②冷静

寂寞：①孤单冷清：晚上只剩下我一个人在家里，真是～。 寂寞

冷清：冷静而凄凉：冷冷清清 ㄧ～的深夜ㄧ后山游人少，显冷清

僻静：偏僻清静：山林的僻静处有一间茅屋。僻静

肃静：1.肃清;使安定。 2.旧时王侯﹑官员等外出时肃静

寂然：〈书〉形容寂静的样子。寂然

沉静：沉静

默默：1.缄口不说话。 2.幽寂无声。 3.无知貌默默

寂寥：〈书〉寂静;空旷。寂寥

岑寂：寂静;冷清：山堂夜岑寂。岑寂

沉寂的反义词

喧闹：1.喧哗热闹;吵闹。喧闹

喧嚣：①叫嚷;喧闹：喧嚣一时|叫卖的小商贩喧嚣起来了。喧嚣

鼎沸：〈书〉形容喧闹、混乱，像水在锅里沸腾一样：人声～鼎沸

沉寂的造句

1、沉寂多时的飆车恶风死灰复燃，让警方十分头痛。

2、最近一段时间,在外地打工的哥哥音讯沉寂,家人焦急万分。

3、沉寂已久的色情理发业又死灰复燃了。

4、沉寂多时的飙车恶风死灰复燃，让警方十分头痛。

5、突然间,战场变得十分沉寂起来。

6、炮声沉寂。

7、他的声音渐趋沉寂。

8、终于，在上周，在沉寂了一个月之后，我又一次听到了窗外的喧闹声，一阵接一阵的传来。

9、在经过几乎沉寂的数年后，战争中劳工的参与遗迹最终在中国和欧洲吸引了人们的注意。

10、外面是灯火和喧哗;这里只有夜晚的沉寂。

第四篇：名人演讲：打破沉寂

名人演讲：打破沉寂

我们都知道，马丁·路德·金是美国的民权运动领袖，他为黑人谋求平等，甚至献出了自己的生命，被誉为是“黑人的麦加”。而与此同时，马丁·路德·金也是一名卓越的反战斗士，他关心的不仅仅是“小我”的权利，而且还有“大我”的和平、自由。如果你一直以来只是把马丁·路德·金看成一个黑人运动领袖，那么下面的这篇演讲相信会让你对他有新的认识——马 ぢ返隆そ鸬奈按笕烁裰档梦颐敲恳桓鲅鍪幼鹁础?br>

本演讲发表于1967年4月4日，是马丁·路德·金在“忧世教士和俗人协会”的一个反越站的集会上的演讲，集会的地点是纽约著名的河边大教堂（Riverside Church）。

我之所以跨入此间宏伟的教堂，是因为我的良心让我别无选择。我加入你们的集会，则是因为我对这个聚合我们的组织——“忧世教士和俗人协会”关注越南——的工作和主旨非常认同。我对你们执委会最近的声明深有同感，当我阅读到它的开场白的时候就甚有共鸣：“这是一个‘沉默即是背叛’的时刻。”

I come to this magnificent house of worship tonight because my conscience leaves me no other choice.I join you in this meeting because I am in deepest agreement with the aims and work of the organization which has brought us together: Clergy and Laymen Concerned about Vietnam.The recent statements of your executive committee are the sentiments of my own heart, and I found myself in full accord when I read its opening lines: “A time comes when silence is betrayal.” 海量资料分享

演讲全文：A Time to Break Silence by Martin Luther King, Jr.I come to this magnificent house of worship tonight because my conscience leaves me no other choice.I join you in this meeting because I am in deepest agreement with the aims and work of the organization which has brought us together: Clergy and Laymen Concerned about Vietnam.The recent statements of your executive committee are the sentiments of my own heart, and I found myself in full accord when I read its opening lines: “A time comes when silence is betrayal.” And that time has come for us in relation to Vietnam.The truth of these words is beyond doubt, but the mission to which they call us is a most difficult one.Even when pressed by the demands of inner truth, men do not easily assume the task of opposing their government's policy, especially in time of war.Nor does the human spirit move without great difficulty against all the apathy of conformist thought within one's own bosom and in the surrounding world.Moreover, when the issues at hand seem as perplexed as they often do in the case of this dreadful conflict, we are always on the verge of being mesmerized by uncertainty;but we must move on.And some of us who have already begun to break the silence of the night have found that the calling to speak is often a vocation of agony, but we must speak.We must speak with all the humility that is appropriate to our limited vision, but we must speak.And we must rejoice as well, for surely this is the first time in our nation's history that a significant number of its religious leaders have chosen to move beyond 海量资料分享

the prophesying of smooth patriotism to the high grounds of a firm dissent based upon the mandates of conscience and the reading of history.Perhaps a new spirit is rising among us.If it is, let us trace its movements and pray that our own inner being may be sensitive to its guidance, for we are deeply in need of a new way beyond the darkness that seems so close around us.Over the past two years, as I have moved to break the betrayal of my own silences and to speak from the burnings of my own heart, as I have called for radical departures from the destruction of Vietnam, many persons have questioned me about the wisdom of my path.At the heart of their concerns this query has often loomed large and loud: “Why are you speaking about the war, Dr.King?” “Why are you joining the voices of dissent?” “Peace and civil rights don't mix,” they say.“Aren't you hurting the cause of your people,” they ask? And when I hear them, though I often understand the source of their concern, I am nevertheless greatly saddened, for such questions mean that the inquirers have not really known me, my commitment or my calling.Indeed, their questions suggest that they do not know the world in which they live.In the light of such tragic misunderstanding, I deem it of signal importance to try to state clearly, and I trust concisely, why I believe that the path from Dexter Avenue Baptist Church--the church in Montgomery, Alabama, where I began my pastorate--leads clearly to this sanctuary tonight.I come to this platform tonight to make a passionate plea to my beloved nation.This speech is not addressed to Hanoi or to the National Liberation Front.It is not addressed to China or to Russia.Nor is it an attempt to overlook the ambiguity of the total situation and the need for a collective solution to the tragedy of Vietnam.海量资料分享

Neither is it an attempt to make North Vietnam or the National Liberation Front paragons of virtue, nor to overlook the role they must play in the successful resolution of the problem.While they both may have justifiable reasons to be suspicious of the good faith of the United States, life and history give eloquent testimony to the fact that conflicts are never resolved without trustful give and take on both sides.Tonight, however, I wish not to speak with Hanoi and the National Liberation Front, but rather to my fellowed [sic] Americans, *who, with me, bear the greatest responsibility in ending a conflict that has exacted a heavy price on both continents.Since I am a preacher by trade, I suppose it is not surprising that I have seven major reasons for bringing Vietnam into the field of my moral vision.* There is at the outset a very obvious and almost facile connection between the war in Vietnam and the struggle I, and others, have been waging in America.A few years ago there was a shining moment in that struggle.It seemed as if there was a real promise of hope for the poor--both black and white--through the poverty program.There were experiments, hopes, new beginnings.Then came the buildup in Vietnam, and I watched this program broken and eviscerated, as if it were some idle political plaything of a society gone mad on war, and I knew that America would never invest the necessary funds or energies in rehabilitation of its poor so long as adventures like Vietnam continued to draw men and skills and money like some demonic destructive suction tube.So, I was increasingly compelled to see the war as an enemy of the poor and to attack it as such.Perhaps the more tragic recognition of reality took place when it became clear to me that the war was doing far more than devastating the hopes of the poor at 海量资料分享

home.It was sending their son

海量资料分享

第五篇：名人演讲：打破沉寂

我们都知道，马丁·路德·金是美国的民权运动领袖，他为黑人谋求平等，甚至献出了自己的生命，被誉为是“黑人的麦加”。而与此同时，马丁·路德·金也是一名卓越的反战斗士，他关心的不仅仅是“小我”的权利，而且还有“大我”的和平、自由。如果你一直以来只是把马丁·路德·金看成一个黑人运动领袖，那么下面的这篇演讲相信会让你对他有新的认识——马　ぢ返隆そ鸬奈按笕烁裰档梦颐敲恳桓鲅鍪幼鹁础?br>

本演讲发表于1967年4月4日，是马丁·路德·金在“忧世教士和俗人协会”的一个反越站的集会上的演讲，集会的地点是纽约著名的河边大教堂（Riverside Church）。

我之所以跨入此间宏伟的教堂，是因为我的良心让我别无选择。我加入你们的集会，则是因为我对这个聚合我们的组织——“忧世教士和俗人协会”关注越南——的工作和主旨非常认同。我对你们执委会最近的声明深有同感，当我阅读到它的开场白的时候就甚有共鸣：“这是一个‘沉默即是背叛’的时刻。”

I come to this magnificent house of worship tonight because my conscience leaves me no other choice.I join you in this meeting because I am in deepest agreement with the aims and work of the organization which has brought us together: Clergy and Laymen Concerned about Vietnam.The recent statements of your executive committee are the sentiments of my own heart, and I found myself in full accord when I read its opening lines: “A time comes when silence is betrayal.”

演讲全文：A Time to Break Silence by Martin Luther King, Jr.I come to this magnificent house of worship tonight because my conscience leaves me no other choice.I join you in this meeting because I am in deepest agreement with the aims and work of the organization which has brought us together: Clergy and Laymen Concerned about Vietnam.The recent statements of your executive committee are the sentiments of my own heart, and I found myself in full accord when I read its opening lines: “A time comes when silence is betrayal.” And that time has come for us in relation to Vietnam.The truth of these words is beyond doubt, but the mission to which they call us is a most difficult one.Even when pressed by the demands of inner truth, men do not easily assume the task of opposing their government's policy, especially in time of war.Nor does the human spirit move without great difficulty against all the apathy of conformist thought within one's own bosom and in the surrounding world.Moreover, when the issues at hand seem as perplexed as they often do in the case of this dreadful conflict, we are always on the verge of being mesmerized by uncertainty;but we must move on.And some of us who have already begun to break the silence of the night have found that the calling to speak is often a vocation of agony, but we must speak.We must speak with all the humility that is appropriate to our limited vision, but we must speak.And we must rejoice as well, for surely this is the first time in our nation's history that a significant number of its religious leaders have chosen to move beyond the prophesying of smooth patriotism to the high grounds of a firm dissent based upon the mandates of conscience and the reading of history.perhaps a new spirit is rising among us.If it is, let us trace its movements and pray that our own inner being may be sensitive to its guidance, for we are deeply in need of a new way beyond the darkness that seems so close around us.Over the past two years, as I have moved to break the betrayal of my own silences and to speak from the burnings of my own heart, as I have called for radical departures from the destruction of Vietnam, many persons have questioned me about the wisdom of my path.At the heart of their concerns this query has often loomed large and loud: “Why are you speaking about the war, Dr.King?” “Why are you joining the voices of dissent?” “peace and civil rights don't mix,” they say.“Aren't you hurting the cause of your people,” they ask? And when I hear them, though I often understand the source of their concern, I am nevertheless greatly saddened, for such questions mean that the inquirers have not really known me, my commitment or my calling.Indeed, their questions suggest that they do not know the world in which they live.In the light of such tragic misunderstanding, I deem it of signal importance to try to state clearly, and I trust concisely, why I believe that the path from Dexter Avenue Baptist Church--the church in Montgomery, Alabama, where I began my pastorate--leads clearly to this sanctuary tonight.I come to this platform tonight to make a passionate plea to my beloved nation.This speech is not addressed to Hanoi or to the National Liberation Front.It is not addressed to China or to Russia.Nor is it an attempt to overlook the ambiguity of the total situation and the need for a collective solution to the tragedy of Vietnam.Neither is it an attempt to make North Vietnam or the National Liberation Front paragons of virtue, nor to overlook the role they must play in the successful resolution of the problem.While they both may have justifiable reasons to be suspicious of the good faith of the United States, life and history give eloquent testimony to the fact that conflicts are never resolved without trustful give and take on both sides.Tonight, however, I wish not to speak with Hanoi and the National Liberation Front, but rather to my fellowed [sic] Americans, *who, with me, bear the greatest responsibility in ending a conflict that has exacted a heavy price on both continents.Since I am a preacher by trade, I suppose it is not surprising that I have seven major reasons for bringing Vietnam into the field of my moral vision.* There is at the outset a very obvious and almost facile connection between the war in Vietnam and the struggle I, and others, have been waging in America.A few years ago there was a shining moment in that struggle.It seemed as if there was a real promise of hope for the poor--both black and white--through the poverty program.There were experiments, hopes, new beginnings.Then came the buildup in Vietnam, and I watched this program broken and eviscerated, as if it were some idle political plaything of a society gone mad on war, and I knew that America would never invest the necessary funds or energies in rehabilitation of its poor so long as adventures like Vietnam continued to draw men and skills and money like some demonic destructive suction tube.So, I was increasingly compelled to see the war as an enemy of the poor and to attack it as such.perhaps the more tragic recognition of reality took place when it became clear to me that the war was doing far more than devastating the hopes of the poor at home.It was sending their sons and their brothers and their husbands to fight and to die in extraordinarily high proportions relative to the rest of the population.We were taking the black young men who had been crippled by our society and sending them eight thousand miles away to guarantee liberties in Southeast Asia which they had not found in southwest Georgia and East Harlem.And so we have been repeatedly faced with the cruel irony of watching Negro and white boys on TV screens as they kill and die together for a nation that has been unable to seat them together in the same schools.And so we watch them in brutal solidarity burning the huts of a poor village, but we realize that they would hardly live on the same block in Chicago.I could not be silent in the face of such cruel manipulation of the poor.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:

O, yes,I say it plain,America never was America to me,And yet I swear this oath--

America will be!

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?

And finally, as I try to explain for you and for myself the road that leads from Montgomery to this place I would have offered all that was most valid if I simply said that I must be true to my conviction that I share with all men the calling to be a son of the living God.Beyond the calling of race or nation or creed is this vocation of sonship and brotherhood, and because I believe that the Father is deeply concerned especially for his suffering and helpless and outcast children, I come tonight to speak for them.This I believe to be the privilege and the burden of all of us who deem ourselves bound by allegiances and loyalties which are broader and deeper than nationalism and which go beyond our nation's self-defined goals and positions.We are called to speak for the weak, for the voiceless, for the victims of our nation and for those it calls “enemy,” for no document from human hands can make these humans any less our brothers.And as I ponder the madness of Vietnam and search within myself for ways to understand and respond in compassion, my mind goes constantly to the people of that peninsula.I speak now not of the soldiers of each side, not of the ideologies of the Liberation Front, not of the junta in Saigon, but simply of the people who have been living under the curse of war for almost three continuous decades now.I think of them, too, because it is clear to me that there will be no meaningful solution there until some attempt is made to know them and hear their broken cries.They must see Americans as strange liberators.The Vietnamese people proclaimed their own independence *in 1954*--in 1945 *rather*--after a combined French and Japanese occupation and before the communist revolution in China.They were led by Ho Chi Minh.Even though they quoted the American Declaration of Independence in their own document of freedom, we refused to recognize them.Instead, we decided to support France in its reconquest of her former colony.Our government felt then that the Vietnamese people were not ready for independence, and we again fell victim to the deadly Western arrogance that has poisoned the international atmosphere for so long.With that tragic decision we rejected a revolutionary government seeking self-determination and a government that had been established not by China--for whom the Vietnamese have no great love--but by clearly indigenous forces that included some communists.For the peasants this new government meant real land reform, one of the most important needs in their lives.For nine years following 1945 we denied the people of Vietnam the right of independence.For nine years we vigorously supported the French in their abortive effort to recolonize Vietnam.Before the end of the war we were meeting eighty percent of the French war costs.Even before the French were defeated at Dien Bien phu, they began to despair of their reckless action, but we did not.We encouraged them with our huge financial and military supplies to continue the war even after they had lost the will.Soon we would be paying almost the full costs of this tragic attempt at recolonization.After the French were defeated, it looked as if independence and land reform would come again through the Geneva Agreement.But instead there came the United States, determined that Ho should not unify the temporarily divided nation, and the peasants watched again as we supported one of the most vicious modern dictators, our chosen man, premier Diem.The peasants watched and cringed as Diem ruthlessly rooted out all opposition, supported their extortionist landlords, and refused even to discuss reunification with the North.The peasants watched as all this was presided over by United States' influence and then by increasing numbers of United States troops who came to help quell the insurgency that Diem's methods had aroused.When Diem was overthrown they may have been happy, but the long line of military dictators seemed to offer no real change, especially in terms of their need for land and peace.The only change came from America, as we increased our troop commitments in support of governments which were singularly corrupt, inept, and without popular support.All the while the people read our leaflets and received the regular promises of peace and democracy and land reform.Now they languish under our bombs and consider us, not their fellow Vietnamese, the real enemy.They move sadly and apathetically as we herd them off the land of their fathers into concentration camps where minimal social needs are rarely met.They know they must move on or be destroyed by our bombs.So they go, primarily women and children and the aged.They watch as we poison their water, as we kill a million acres of their crops.They must weep as the bulldozers roar through their areas preparing to destroy the precious trees.They wander into the hospitals with at least twenty casualties from American firepower for one Vietcong-inflicted injury.So far we may have killed a million of them, mostly children.They wander into the towns and see thousands of the children, homeless, without clothes, running in packs on the streets like animals.They see the children degraded by our soldiers as they beg for food.They see the children selling their sisters to our soldiers, soliciting for their mothers.What do the peasants think as we ally ourselves with the landlords and as we refuse to put any action into our many words concerning land reform? What do they think as we test out our latest weapons on them, just as the Germans tested out new medicine and new tortures in the concentration camps of Europe? Where are the roots of the independent Vietnam we claim to be building? Is it among these voiceless ones?

We have destroyed their two most cherished institutions: the family and the village.We have destroyed their land and their crops.We have cooperated in the crushing of the nation's only noncommunist revolutionary political force, the unified Buddhist Church.We have supported the enemies of the peasants of Saigon.We have corrupted their women and children and killed their men.Now there is little left to build on, save bitterness.*Soon the only solid physical foundations remaining will be found at our military bases and in the concrete of the concentration camps we call “fortified hamlets.” The peasants may well wonder if we plan to build our new Vietnam on such grounds as these.Could we blame them for such thoughts? We must speak for them and raise the questions they cannot raise.These, too, are our brothers.perhaps a more difficult but no less necessary task is to speak for those who have been designated as our enemies.* What of the National Liberation Front, that strangely anonymous group we call “VC” or “communists”? What must they think of the United States of America when they realize that we permitted the repression and cruelty of Diem, which helped to bring them into being as a resistance group in the South? What do they think of our condoning the violence which led to their own taking up of arms? How can they believe in our integrity when now we speak of “aggression from the North” as if there were nothing more essential to the war? How can they trust us when now we charge them with violence after the murderous reign of Diem and charge them with violence while we pour every new weapon of death into their land? Surely we must understand their feelings, even if we do not condone their actions.Surely we must see that the men we supported pressed them to their violence.Surely we must see that our own computerized plans of destruction simply dwarf their greatest acts.How do they judge us when our officials know that their membership is less than twenty-five percent communist, and yet insist on giving them the blanket name? What must they be thinking when they know that we are aware of their control of major sections of Vietnam, and yet we appear ready to allow national elections in which this highly organized political parallel government will not have a part? They ask how we can speak of free elections when the Saigon press is censored and controlled by the military junta.And they are surely right to wonder what kind of new government we plan to help form without them, the only party in real touch with the peasants.They question our political goals and they deny the reality of a peace settlement from which they will be excluded.Their questions are frighteningly relevant.Is our nation planning to build on political myth again, and then shore it up upon the power of new violence?

Here is the true meaning and value of compassion and nonviolence, when it helps us to see the enemy's point of view, to hear his questions, to know his assessment of ourselves.For from his view we may indeed see the basic weaknesses of our own condition, and if we are mature, we may learn and grow and profit from the wisdom of the brothers who are called the opposition.So, too, with Hanoi.In the North, where our bombs now pummel the land, and our mines endanger the waterways, we are met by a deep but understandable mistrust.To speak for them is to explain this lack of confidence in Western words, and especially their distrust of American intentions now.In Hanoi are the men who led the nation to independence against the Japanese and the French, the men who sought membership in the French Commonwealth and were betrayed by the weakness of paris and the willfulness of the colonial armies.It was they who led a second struggle against French domination at tremendous costs, and then were persuaded to give up the land they controlled between the thirteenth and seventeenth parallel as a temporary measure at Geneva.After 1954 they watched us conspire with Diem to prevent elections which could have surely brought Ho Chi Minh to power over a united Vietnam, and they realized they had been betrayed again.When we ask why they do not leap to negotiate, these things must be remembered.Also, it must be clear that the leaders of Hanoi considered the presence of American troops in support of the Diem regime to have been the initial military breach of the Geneva Agreement concerning foreign troops.They remind us that they did not begin to send troops in large numbers and even supplies into the South until American forces had moved into the tens of thousands.Hanoi remembers how our leaders refused to tell us the truth about the earlier North Vietnamese overtures for peace, how the president claimed that none existed when they had clearly been made.Ho Chi Minh has watched as America has spoken of peace and built up its forces, and now he has surely heard the increasing international rumors of American plans for an invasion of the North.He knows the bombing and shelling and mining we are doing are part of traditional pre-invasion strategy.perhaps only his sense of humor and of irony can save him when he hears the most powerful nation of the world speaking of aggression as it drops thousands of bombs on a poor, weak nation more than *eight hundred, or rather,* eight thousand miles away from its shores.At this point I should make it clear that while I have tried in these last few minutes to give a voice to the voiceless in Vietnam and to understand the arguments of those who are called “enemy,” I am as deeply concerned about our own troops there as anything else.For it occurs to me that what we are submitting them to in Vietnam is not simply the brutalizing process that goes on in any war where armies face each other and seek to destroy.We are adding cynicism to the process of death, for they must know after a short period there that none of the things we claim to be fighting for are really involved.Before long they must know that their government has sent them into a struggle among Vietnamese, and the more sophisticated surely realize that we are on the side of the wealthy, and the secure, while we create a hell for the poor.Somehow this madness must cease.We must stop now.I speak as a child of God and brother to the suffering poor of Vietnam.I speak for those whose land is being laid waste, whose homes are being destroyed, whose culture is being subverted.I speak for the poor of America who are paying the double price of smashed hopes at home, and death and corruption in Vietnam.I speak as a citizen of the world, for the world as it stands aghast at the path we have taken.I speak as one who loves America, to the leaders of our own nation: The great initiative in this war is ours;the initiative to stop it must be ours.This is the message of the great Buddhist leaders of Vietnam.Recently one of them wrote these words, and I quote:

Each day the war goes on the hatred increases in the heart of the Vietnamese and in the hearts of those of humanitarian instinct.The Americans are forcing even their friends into becoming their enemies.It is curious that the Americans, who calculate so carefully on the possibilities of military victory, do not realize that in the process they are incurring deep psychological and political defeat.The image of America will never again be the image of revolution, freedom, and democracy, but the image of violence and militarism(unquote).If we continue, there will be no doubt in my mind and in the mind of the world that we have no honorable intentions in Vietnam.If we do not stop our war against the people of Vietnam immediately, the world will be left with no other alternative than to see this as some horrible, clumsy, and deadly game we have decided to play.The world now demands a maturity of America that we may not be able to achieve.It demands that we admit that we have been wrong from the beginning of our adventure in Vietnam, that we have been detrimental to the life of the Vietnamese people.The situation is one in which we must be ready to turn sharply from our present ways.In order to atone for our sins and errors in Vietnam, we should take the initiative in bringing a halt to this tragic war.*I would like to suggest five concrete things that our government should do immediately to begin the long and difficult process of extricating ourselves from this nightmarish conflict:

Number one: End all bombing in North and South Vietnam.Number two: Declare a unilateral cease-fire in the hope that such action will create the atmosphere for negotiation.Three: Take immediate steps to prevent other battlegrounds in Southeast Asia by curtailing our military buildup in Thailand and our interference in Laos.Four: Realistically accept the fact that the National Liberation Front has substantial support in South Vietnam and must thereby play a role in any meaningful negotiations and any future Vietnam government.Five: *Set a date that we will remove all foreign troops from Vietnam in accordance with the 1954 Geneva Agreement.part of our ongoing...part of our ongoing commitment might well express itself in an offer to grant asylum to any Vietnamese who fears for his life under a new regime which included the Liberation Front.Then we must make what reparations we can for the damage we have done.We must provide the medical aid that is badly needed, making it available in this country, if necessary.Meanwhile...meanwhile, we in the churches and synagogues have a continuing task while we urge our government to disengage itself from a disgraceful commitment.We must continue to raise our voices and our lives if our nation persists in its perverse ways in Vietnam.We must be prepared to match actions with words by seeking out every creative method of protest possible.*As we counsel young men concerning military service, we must clarify for them our nation's role in Vietnam and challenge them with the alternative of conscientious objection.I am pleased to say that this is a path now chosen by more than seventy students at my own alma mater, Morehouse College, and I recommend it to all who find the American course in Vietnam a dishonorable and unjust one.Moreover, I would encourage all ministers of draft age to give up their ministerial exemptions and seek status as conscientious objectors.* These are the times for real choices and not false ones.We are at the moment when our lives must be placed on the line if our nation is to survive its own folly.Every man of humane convictions must decide on the protest that best suits his convictions, but we must all protest.Now there is something seductively tempting about stopping there and sending us all off on what in some circles has become a popular crusade against the war in Vietnam.I say we must enter that struggle, but I wish to go on now to say something even more disturbing.The war in Vietnam is but a symptom of a far deeper malady within the American spirit, and if we ignore this sobering reality...and if we ignore this sobering reality, we will find ourselves organizing “clergy and laymen concerned” committees for the next generation.They will be concerned about Guatemala and peru.They will be concerned about Thailand and Cambodia.They will be concerned about Mozambique and South Africa.We will be marching for these and a dozen other names and attending rallies without end, unless there is a significant and profound change in American life and policy.And so, such thoughts take us beyond Vietnam, but not beyond our calling as sons of the living God.In 1957, a sensitive American official overseas said that it seemed to him that our nation was on the wrong side of a world revolution.During the past ten years, we have seen emerge a pattern of suppression which has now justified the presence of U.S.military advisors in Venezuela.This need to maintain social stability for our investments accounts for the counterrevolutionary action of American forces in Guatemala.It tells why American helicopters are being used against guerrillas in Cambodia and why American napalm and Green Beret forces have already been active against rebels in peru.It is with such activity in mind that the words of the late John F.Kennedy come back to haunt us.Five years ago he said, “Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.” Increasingly, by choice or by accident, this is the role our nation has taken, the role of those who make peaceful revolution impossible by refusing to give up the privileges and the pleasures that come from the immense profits of overseas investments.I am convinced that if we are to get on the right side of the world revolution, we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values.We must rapidly begin...we must rapidly begin the shift from a thing-oriented society to a person-oriented society.When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights, are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, extreme materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered.A true revolution of values will soon cause us to question the fairness and justice of many of our past and present policies.On the one hand, we are called to play the Good Samaritan on life's roadside, but that will be only an initial act.One day we must come to see that the whole Jericho Road must be transformed so that men and women will not be constantly beaten and robbed as they make their journey on life's highway.True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar.It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring.A true revolution of values will soon look uneasily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth.With righteous indignation, it will look across the seas and see individual capitalists of the West investing huge sums of money in Asia, Africa, and South America, only to take the profits out with no concern for the social betterment of the countries, and say, “This is not just.” It will look at our alliance with the landed gentry of South America and say, “This is not just.” The Western arrogance of feeling that it has everything to teach others and nothing to learn from them is not just.A true revolution of values will lay hand on the world order and say of war, “This way of settling differences is not just.” This business of burning human beings 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.America, the richest and most powerful nation in the world, can well lead the way in this revolution of values.There is nothing except a tragic death wish to prevent us from reordering our priorities so that the pursuit of peace will take precedence over the pursuit of war.There is nothing to keep us from molding a recalcitrant status quo with bruised hands until we have fashioned it into a brotherhood.*This kind of positive revolution of values is our best defense against communism.War is not the answer.Communism will never be defeated by the use of atomic bombs or nuclear weapons.Let us not join those who shout war and, through their misguided passions, urge the United States to relinquish its participation in the United Nations.* These are days which demand wise restraint and calm reasonableness.*We must not engage in a negative anticommunism, but rather in a positive thrust for democracy, realizing that our greatest defense against communism is to take offensive action in behalf of justice.We must with positive action seek to remove those conditions of poverty, insecurity, and injustice, which are the fertile soil in which the seed of communism grows and develops.*

These are revolutionary times.All over the globe men are revolting against old systems of exploitation and oppression, and out of the wounds of a frail world, new systems of justice and equality are being born.The shirtless and barefoot people of the land are rising up as never before.The people who sat in darkness have seen a great light.We in the West must support these revolutions.It is a sad fact that because of comfort, complacency, a morbid fear of communism, and our proneness to adjust to injustice, the Western nations that initiated so much of the revolutionary spirit of the modern world have now become the arch antirevolutionaries.This has driven many to feel that only Marxism has a revolutionary spirit.Therefore, communism is a judgment against our failure to make democracy real and follow through on the revolutions that we initiated.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.”

A genuine revolution of values means in the final analysis that our loyalties must become ecumenical rather than sectional.Every nation must now develop an overriding loyalty to mankind as a whole in order to preserve the best in their individual societies.This call for a worldwide fellowship that lifts neighborly concern beyond one's tribe, race, class, and nation is in reality a call for an all-embracing and unconditional love for all mankind.This oft misunderstood, this oft misinterpreted concept, so readily dismissed by the Nietzsches of the world as a weak and cowardly force, has now become an absolute necessity for the survival of man.When I speak of love I am not speaking of some sentimental and weak response.I am not speaking of that force which is just emotional bosh.I am speaking of that force which all of the great religions have seen as the supreme unifying principle of life.Love is somehow the key that unlocks the door which leads to ultimate reality.This Hindu-Muslim-Christian-Jewish-Buddhist belief about ultimate reality is beautifully summed up in the first epistle of Saint John: “Let us love one another, for love is God.And every one that loveth is born of God and knoweth God.He that loveth not knoweth not God, for God is love.” “If we love one another, God dwelleth in us and his love is perfected in us.” Let us hope that this spirit will become the order of the day.We can no longer afford to worship the god of hate or bow before the altar of retaliation.The oceans of history are made turbulent by the ever-rising tides of hate.And history is cluttered with the wreckage of nations and individuals that pursued this self-defeating path of hate.As Arnold Toynbee says: “Love is the ultimate force that makes for the saving choice of life and good against the damning choice of death and evil.Therefore the first hope in our inventory must be the hope that love is going to have the last word”(unquote).We are now faced with the fact, my friends, that tomorrow is today.We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now.In this unfolding conundrum of life and history, there is such a thing as being too late.procrastination is still the thief of time.Life often leaves us standing bare, naked, and dejected with a lost opportunity.The tide in the affairs of men does not remain at flood--it ebbs.We may cry out desperately for time to pause in her passage, but time is adamant to every plea and rushes on.Over the bleached bones and jumbled residues of numerous civilizations are written the pathetic words, “Too late.” There is an invisible book of life that faithfully records our vigilance or our neglect.Omar Khayyam is right: “The moving finger writes, and having writ moves on.”

We still have a choice today: nonviolent coexistence or violent coannihilation.We must move past indecision to action.We must find new ways to speak for peace in Vietnam and justice throughout the developing world, a world that borders on our doors.If we do not act, we shall surely be dragged down the long, dark, and shameful corridors of time reserved for those who possess power without compassion, might without morality, and strength without sight.Now let us begin.Now let us rededicate ourselves to the long and bitter, but beautiful, struggle for a new world.This is the calling of the sons of God, and our brothers wait eagerly for our response.Shall we say the odds are too great? Shall we tell them the struggle is too hard? Will our message be that the forces of American life militate against their arrival as full men, and we send our deepest regrets? Or will there be another message--of longing, of hope, of solidarity with their yearnings, of commitment to their cause, whatever the cost? The choice is ours, and though we might prefer it otherwise, we must choose in this crucial moment of human history.As that noble bard of yesterday, James Russell Lowell, eloquently stated:

Once to every man and nation comes a moment to decide，In the strife of Truth and Falsehood, for the good or evil side;

Some great cause, God's new Messiah offering each the bloom or blight，And the choice goes by forever 'twixt that darkness and that light.Though the cause of evil prosper, yet 'tis truth alone is strong

Though her portions be the scaffold, and upon the throne be wrong

Yet that scaffold sways the future, and behind the dim unknown

Standeth God within the shadow, keeping watch above his own.And if we will only make the right choice, we will be able to transform this pending cosmic elegy into a creative psalm of peace.If we will make the right choice, we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our world into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood.If we will but make the right choice, we will be able to speed up the day, all over America and all over the world, when justice will roll down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream.