Reply #3: You took that out of context, that quote is about ending the Viet Nam war

[jim3775]

Not about excusing the actions of a convicted mass murderer.

Here is the full quote:

As I have walked among the desperate, rejected and angry young men I have told them that Molotov cocktails and rifles would not solve their problems. I have tried to offer them my deepest compassion while maintaining my conviction that social change comes most meaningfully through nonviolent action. But they asked - and rightly so - what about Vietnam? They asked if our own nation wasn't using massive doses of violence to solve its problems, to bring about the changes it wanted. Their questions hit home, and I knew that I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed in the ghettos without having first spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today - my own government.

"Beyond Vietnam" Speech at Riverside Church in New York City (April 4, 1967)

Edit: If you want to get into semantics, his use of "without having first spoken" means that he will eventually speak out against the violence in the ghettos.