It’s MLK Day, officially the Birthday of Martin Luther King, Jr., and a federal holiday in the United States marking his birthday. Martin Luther King Jr. was one of the most influential figures of the American civil rights movement whose contributions still give people inspiration and courage.
Here are some examples of King’s speeches, sermons, and lectures, along with their messages.
1. ‘Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break the Silence’
4 Apr 1967
Martin Luther King, Jr. had spoken about his opposition to the Vietnam War publicly but the “Beyond Vietnam” speech delivered in 1967 is considered to be his first major public statement addressing a crowd of approximately 3,000 people in Riverside Church in New York City. In the speech, he talked of seven reasons why he thought it was time that he, as a civil rights leader and Nobel Peace Prize winner, needed to take a stance on the Vietnam War.
2. ‘Letter from a Birmingham Jail’
16 Apr 1963
‘Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.’
All of these circumstances that are stated in this letter are inherently linked to the fact that he couldn’t deliver a speech in person. At the time, King found himself jailed in Alabama after ignoring an injunction against protests in Birmingham.
During that time, with this letter, he responded to an urge of a group of people from the jail. So, he wrote it down.
3. ‘I Have a Dream…’
28 Aug 1963
‘I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.’
The speech that remains Martin Luther King Jr.’s most famous oration but also one of the most famous orations in American history, if not world history said Calloway Thomas says. With this speech, the world as a whole really saw King, and the moment was carefully orchestrated, framed by the Lincoln Memorial.
4. ‘The Three Evils of Society’
August 31, 1967
King delivered the ‘The Three Evils of Society’ speech at the National Conference on New Politics in Chicago to an audience of roughly 3,000 people. In his speech, he made the case that racism, excessive materialism, and militarism are all forms of violence that exist in a vicious cycle, referring to them as the “three evils” of American society.
5. ‘I’ve Been to the Mountaintop’
April 3, 1968
‘I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the Promised Land’, the last speech he ever gave the night before King was assassinated. In this speech, which summons King’s primary background as a preacher, he returns to the story of Moses. King casts himself as another leader who may not be there for the end of the journey.
MLK Day is observed on the third Monday of January each year. His stirring speeches touched on everything from social and racial justice to nonviolence, poverty, the Vietnam War, and dismantling white supremacy.
