Thank you for outlining Vincent Harding’s life and contribution (“Beggars and Saints,” Feb. 12). The “Beyond Vietnam” speech that Harding helped draft for Martin Luther King Jr. in 1967 should be standard study for U.S. and Anabaptist history. With a few geographic name changes, every word speaks to today, with the same urgency. Harding was a visionary. That his vision was shaped, in part, by Mennonite teaching is something to embrace and build upon. That his voice and teaching aren’t more readily recognized in our Anabaptist sphere exposes our complicity to the status quo. Thanks for helping to show where we need to take steps forward.
Jerry Brenneman, Viroqua, Wis.
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