The Enduring Relevance of Dr. King’s Critique of Empire

In his April 4, 1967, address at Riverside Church, King argued that the Vietnam War was not an anomaly, but a symptom of a broader system rooted in militarism, racism, and economic exploitation — what he called “the giant triplets of racism, extreme materialism, and militarism” (King, 1967). This was important because it highlighted the theoretical and practical interconnection of these elements. It located U.S. power within a global racial-capitalist order. As he noted: “A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death” (King, 1967). King also emphasized the humanity of those targeted by U.S. violence: “They watch as we poison their water, as we kill a million acres of their crops… so they must see Americans as strange liberators” (King, 1967).
Gaza, Venezuela, And Enduring Relevance Of Dr. King’s Critique Of Empire
By Ajamu Baraka, Black Agenda Report. January 17, 2026. Strategize!

Martin Luther King Jr.’s 1967 diagnosis of the “giant triplets” is a precise theological and political antecedent to the New Conscientious Objector (NewCO) concept of Christian Colonial Capitalist Violence (CCV). King identified that these forces—racism, materialism, and militarism—are not separate societal ills but a single, fused architecture of oppression where participation in one component supports the whole.

King’s assertion that the Vietnam War was a “symptom” rather than an anomaly mirrors the NewCO diagnosis that the “occasions of war” are codified in our economic and political systems.

• Racism as Colonialism: King’s critique of racism corresponds to the Colonial pillar of CCV. This is the political project of dispossession and erasure, justified by the religious ideology of the Doctrine of Discovery, which clears the land for extraction.
• Extreme Materialism as Capitalism: King’s identification of “extreme materialism” correlates to the Capitalist engine of CCV. This force weaponizes the “Economic Draft,” using the threat of starvation and poverty to conscript the marginalized into laboring for a system that extracts life from the earth.
• Militarism as State Enforcement: King’s critique of “militarism” aligns with the NewCO understanding of the state as the enforcer. The police and military exist to protect the property relations established by colonial theft and to enforce the Economic Draft through the criminalization of poverty.