Bringing the War Home

Thirty-six years ago, on April 4, 1967, Dr. Martin Luther King stood in the pulpit of New York's Riverside Church and delivered his first major address against the Vietnam War.

"The Americans are forcing their friends into becoming their enemies," King warned. "It is curious that 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 freedom, democracy and revolution, but the image of militarism and defeat."

It was a controversial speech; King was called a traitor and a foreign policy naïf. But he argued that the fight for social justice could not be won without ending an unjust war abroad.

That's an important legacy for the anti-war camp to remember, faced with a USA PATRIOT Act II backlash worthy of "Fahrenheit 451." As mobs burn Dixie Chicks CDs and Fox talk-show host Bill O'Reilly labels demonstrators "terrorists" and calls for their arrest, anti-war activists are reaching back into communities to denounce the assault on civil liberties, and to bring home the costs the war in Iraq will have on already crippled state and city budgets.

"We think it's an appropriate time for the peace movement to start focusing on the social justice part of this war: Where is the money coming from?" says Leslie Cagan of United for Peace and Justice.

Instead of mobilizing another national march, the group is calling for an extended weekend of local actions -- everything from teach-ins to rallies and nonviolent civil disobedience, starting Friday and continuing through Monday. "We need to keep nurturing the local and community-based parts of this movement, because that's really the backbone," Cagan says.

Many of the events will pay tribute to King, who was assassinated exactly a year after his Vietnam address, on April 4, 1968.

Friday in New York, religious leaders will lead a funeral procession to honor King and the "dead and not yet dead" in Iraq. Bearing coffins, the group will march from Grant's Tomb uptown to Bryant Park in midtown Manhattan.

On Saturday, the recently formed Black Solidarity Against the War Coalition is organizing a march through Harlem.

"We want to give voice and visibility to the large percentage of African Americans who are against this war, and who have been largely overshadowed by the so-called 'mainstream' peace movement," says Nellie Hester Bailey, a longtime tenant organizer from Harlem who is helping to spearhead the group.

The coalition is also urging blacks to stay home from work and school on Friday as part of a nationwide "Black Day of Absence" in honor of King and to protest the war. Their call has been backed by several black politicians and labor leaders in New York City.

Though only announced this week, these calls from the black community point to a largely untapped vein of opposition to the war. Polls show that twice as many African Americans oppose the war than do whites. Many are angered that a disproportionately large number of blacks are being called to serve in what they view as an unjust ploy for U.S. domination in the Middle East. (African Americans count for about 12 percent of the U.S. population, but they constitute 21 percent of the armed forces, including 15 percent of combat troops and about 29 percent of the Army.)

"We can't talk about this war without talking about the war on us at home," says Bailey. "Every opportunity for higher education is being cut for our sons and daughters, and now they want them to go over there to die for U.S. hegemony and for oil."

Beyond this weekend, the group is urging blacks nationwide to boycott Exxon/Mobil as one of the oil companies that stands to profit from the war. "We picked Exxon because they have gas stations in every state where black people live," says organizer Sam Anderson. "And its board has given millions to Bush's presidential campaign."