Faith Community Commemorates 55th Anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s Riverside Speech – Beyond Vietnam
Read-In April 4, 2022 at 7:00pm via Zoom
Clergy and people of faith across Wisconsin will gather on Zoom on April 4 to commemorate the 55thanniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr’s powerful and prescient “Beyond Vietnam’ speech with a virtual Read-In. The Read-In will also be livestreamed on WISDOM’s Facebook page.
Representing Jewish, Christian, Sikh, Unitarian, and Buddhist faiths, clergy, high school and college students, Black, white, Latinx, gay, straight, and trans, all will come together to read the speech collaboratively.
Register here to receive the Zoom link.
Dr. King’s speech against the U.S. military intervention in Vietnam was seen at the time as a radical departure from his work for civil rights and was widely denounced, even by his own Southern Christian Leadership Conference. Yet, his words were prophetic, and still resonate today, as Dr. King called upon us all, as a nation, to undergo a ‘radical revolution of values’. He further warned us, “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.”
Rev. Kelly Asprooth-Jackson – First Unitarian Society, Madison
Jane Kavaloski – WCC Stewardship of Public Life Commission, Madison
Sister Maureen McDonnell, O.P. – Dominican Sisters of Sinsinawa, Madison
Rev. Luis Velasquez – Wellspring United Methodist Church, Madison
Adam Clausen – Life Center Madison
Rev. Jerry Folk – Interfaith Peace Working Group, Madison
Robbie Gunshor – junior at Madison West High School, Madison
Madelyn Peppard – UW Madison/PresHouse, Madison
Sydney Tepner – UW Madison/UW Hillel, Madison
Julia Sikowitz Lee – UW Madison/UW Hillel, Madison
Bishop Paul Erickson – ELCA, Milwaukee
Rev. Walter Lanier – MICAH, Milwaukee
Rev. Joseph Jackson – MICAH, Milwaukee
Pardeep Kaleka – Interfaith Conference of Greater Milwaukee, Milwaukee
Rabbi Steve Adams – WI Council of Rabbis, Milwaukee
Jodi de Fosse – Black Lives are Sacred, Milwaukee
Taylor Staples – Zao Milwaukee Church, Milwaukee
Susan Myoyu Andersen – Great Plains Zen Center, Monroe
The Read-In is co-sponsored by MICAH, Wisconsin Council of Churches, the Wisconsin Council of Rabbis, Wisconsin Faith Voices for Justice, and WISDOM.
