A few days later, King made it clear that his peace work was not undertaken as the leader of the SCLC, but as an individual, as a clergyman, as one who is greatly concerned about peace (Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. on the Vietnam War "The greatest irony and tragedy of all is that our nation, which initiated so much of the revolutionary spirit of the modern world, is now cast in the. P: (650) 723-2092 | F: (650) 723-2093 | kinginstitute@stanford.edu| Campus Map. King to Weigh Civil Disobedience If War Intensifies, New York Times, 2 April 1967. 0000023610 00000 n And that is precisely what concerned Dr. King so much, that these young boys were being sent halfway around the world to fight a war that was unwinnable, that resources were being used there that should've been used here at home. 800-989-8255. Mr. SMILEY: Indeed he did, Neal. But the entire speech, of course, thankfully, was recorded on audio. It is a sad fact that, because of comfort, complacency, a morbid fear of communism, and our proneness to adjust to injustice, the Western nations that initiated so much of the revolutionary spirit of the modern world have now become the arch anti-revolutionaries. [28], A portion of this speech is used in the track "Wisdom, Justice, and Love" by Linkin Park, from their 2010 album A Thousand Suns. As if the weight of such a commitment to the life and health of America were not enough, another burden of responsibility was placed upon me in 1964; and I cannot forget that the Nobel Prize for Peace was also a commission a commission to work harder than I had ever worked before for the brotherhood of man. This is a calling that takes me beyond national allegiances, but even if it were not present I would yet have to live with the meaning of my commitment to the ministry of Jesus Christ. Read The Full Text And Listen To Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "Beyond Vietnam" Speech. Why are you joining the voices of dissent? Because, to your point now, one, I want people to go online and read the speech so you can see the text for yourself. [citation needed] Content [ edit] Soon the only solid physical foundations remaining will be found at our military bases and in the concrete of the concentration camps we call fortified hamlets. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered. The New York Times editorial suggested that conflating the civil rights movement with the Anti-war movement was an oversimplification that did justice to neither, stating that "linking these hard, complex problems will lead not to solutions but to deeper confusion." 0000002427 00000 n Soon we would be paying almost the full costs of this tragic attempt at recolonization. capitalism, and the Vietnam War. The war in Vietnam is but a symptom of a far deeper malady within the American spirit, and if we ignore this sobering reality we will find ourselves organizing clergy- and laymen . V)U5v\@apkk;#WF. Then came the buildup in Vietnam and I watched the program broken and eviscerated as if it were some idle political plaything of a society gone mad on war, and I knew that America would never invest the necessary funds or energies in rehabilitation of its poor so long as adventures like Vietnam continued to draw men and skills and money like some demonic destructive suction tube. And secondly, so many civil rights leaders were opposed to him giving it because LBJ had been the best president to black people on civil rights. Their questions are frighteningly relevant. But two, to the audio, there are only less than 10 minutes of this speech that got covered. For nine years following 1945 we denied the people of Vietnam the right of independence. The Washington Post says he has done a discredit to himself, to his people, to his country. King to Weigh Civil Disobedience). With that tragic decision we rejected a revolutionary government seeking self-determination, and a government that had been established not by China (for whom the Vietnamese have no great love) but by clearly indigenous forces that included some Communists. Recently one of them wrote these words: Each day the war goes on the hatred increases in the heart of the Vietnamese and in the hearts of those of humanitarian instinct. Smiley spoke with both scholars and friends of King, including Cornel West, Vincent Harding and Susannah Heschel. After 1954 they watched us conspire with Diem to prevent elections which would have surely brought Ho Chi Minh to power over a united Vietnam, and they realized they had been betrayed again. MARTIN LUTHER KING JR.: I speak as a child of God and brother to the suffering poor of Vietnam. Challenges of the final years of Martin Luther King, Jr. The United States Congress was spending more and more on the military and less and less on anti-poverty programs at the same time. At the heart of their concerns this query has often loomed large and loud: Why are you speaking about war, Dr. King? After the French were defeated it looked as if independence and land reform would come again through the Geneva agreements. Now there is little left to build onsave bitterness. Martin Luther King Jr. was a social activist that led the Civil Rights Movement, and other movements until his assassination in 1968. It was the speech he labored over the most. I've always argue that Dr. King is the greatest American we've ever produced. On April 4, 1967, exactly one year before his assassination, Dr. Martin Luther King gave his first major public address on the war in Vietnam at a meeting of Clergy and Laity Concerned at Riverside Church in New York City. Now, it should be incandescently clear that no one who has any concern for the integrity and life of America today can ignore the present war. With righteous indignation, it will look across the seas and see individual capitalists of the West investing huge sums of money in Asia, Africa and South America, only to take the profits out with no concern for the social betterment of the countries, and say: This is not just. It will look at our alliance with the landed gentry of Latin America and say: This is not just. The Western arrogance of feeling that it has everything to teach others and nothing to learn from them is not just. [11], King's opposition cost him significant support among white allies, including President Johnson, Billy Graham,[citation needed] union leaders and powerful publishers. Screenshots are considered by the King Estate a violation of this notice. [16][17] King began to speak of the need for fundamental changes in the political and economic life of the nation, and more frequently expressed his opposition to the war and his desire to see a redistribution of resources to correct racial and economic injustice. Fearful of being labeled a Communist, which would diminish the impact of his civil rights work, King tempered his criticism of U.S. policy in Vietnam through late 1965 and 1966. It tells why American helicopters are being used against guerrillas in Colombia and why American napalm and green beret forces have already been active against rebels in Peru. 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. So all that we have is less than 10 minutes of video of the speech. 4. King contemplated but ultimately decided against the proposal on the grounds that he felt uneasy with politics and considered himself better suited for his morally unambiguous role as an activist.[25]. Some, like civil rights leader Ralph Bunche, the NAACP, and the editorial page writers of The Washington Post[3] and The New York Times[4] called the Riverside Church speech a mistake on King's part. At this point I should make it clear that while I have tried in these last few minutes to give a voice to the voiceless on Vietnam and to understand the arguments of those who are called enemy, I am as deeply concerned about our troops there as anything else. "[8] He connected the war with economic injustice, arguing that the country needed serious moral change: A true revolution of values will soon look uneasily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth. On the evening of April 4, 1967, civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King lent his full-throated oratory to a growing chorus of opposition to the rapidly expanding American role in the Vietnam War. I speak as an American to the leaders of my own nation. This speech was written and basically read word for word so that they could have a copy to give to mainstream newspapers across the country for their consideration, because King did not want to be misquoted Mr. SMILEY: or misunderstood, although that didn't work. At the time, civil rights leaders publicly condemned him for it. [6] At the urging of people such as SCLC's former Director of Direct Action and now the head of the Spring Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam, James Bevel, and inspired by the outspokenness of Muhammad Ali,[7] King eventually agreed to publicly oppose the war as opposition was growing among the American public. BlackPast.org is a 501(c)(3) non-profit and our EIN is 26-1625373. I say we must enter the struggle, but I wish to go on now to say something even more disturbing. But certainly one of the greatest orators of our time. Let's go to Walt(ph). Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence . It includes a portion of his speech. The Americans are forcing even their friends into becoming their enemies. They must weep as the bulldozers roar through their areas preparing to destroy the precious trees. Kings opposition to the war provoked criticism from members of Congress, the press, and from his civil rights colleagues who argued that expanding his civil rights message to include foreign affairs would harm the black freedom struggle in America. He supported Johnsons calls for diplomatic negotiations and economic development as the beginnings of such a step. What do they think as we test our latest weapons on them, just as the Germans tested out new medicine and new tortures in the concentration camps of Europe? At the U.N. King also brought up issues of civil rights and the draft. Procrastination is still the thief of time. Martin Luther King, who was already beginning to lose some of his influence, nevertheless made a huge challenge to the establishment. Indeed, their questions suggest that they do not know the world in which they live. The Institute cannot give permission to use or reproduce any of the writings, statements, or images of Martin Luther King, Jr. But Carson makes a powerful point in the special that you just identified, about whether or not Martin King himself would be welcome in some of these mega-churches, at certain political gatherings. It was a wonderful, I think, place to give the speech in the sense that it's pretty cavernous. That's what set so many of them off. I speak for the poor of America who are paying the double price of smashed hopes at home and death and corruption in Vietnam. Attachment 2: Definitions Attachment 3: King Opposed Vietnam War; We Must Oppose US War in Iraq. Could we blame them for such thoughts? I could not be silent in the face of such cruel manipulation of the poor. During the last year of his life, King worked with Spock to develop Vietnam Summer, a volunteer project to increase grassroots peace activism in time for the 1968 elections. One of his great advisers and great admirers, Stanley Levison, who was always with Dr. King in his corner, was against Martin giving this speech. The first signs of opposition to King's tactics from within the civil rights movement surfaced during the March 1965 demonstrations in Selma, Alabama, which were aimed at dramatizing the need for a federal voting-rights law that would provide legal support for the enfranchisement of . 0000009168 00000 n President Obama, this is one campaign promise that he has kept. 0000007161 00000 n It basically ruined their working relationship. 0000002337 00000 n [27], In 2010, PBS commentator Tavis Smiley said that the speech was the most controversial speech of King's career, and the one he "labored over the most". But they asked and rightly so what about Vietnam? CONAN: And one thing that I was unaware of was the timing of the speech in that he had wanted to say something along these lines. Martin Luther King Jr. announced his strong opposition to the war in Vietnam, the media attacked him for straying outside of his civil rights mandate. This speech was enormously controversial. In this unfolding conundrum of life and history there is such a thing as being too late. This is the message of the great Buddhist leaders of Vietnam. It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information. Perhaps the more difficult but no less necessary task is to speak for those who have been designated as our enemies. So Martin's advisors basically said, if you are intent on giving the speech, at least allow us to craft a speech and to create a setting that will allow you to speak to clergy members and laity so at least before you get to this rally that we know is going to be controversial, we could at least roll this thing out with a different kind of a crowd. CONAN: Oh, the audio is terrible, though. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, for example, issued a statement against merging the civil rights and peace movements. If it is, let us trace its movement well and pray that our own inner being may be sensitive to its guidance, for we are deeply in need of a new way beyond the darkness that seems so close around us. It was written by activist and historian Vincent Harding. Check your local listings. Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library, Washington, D.C. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Library, San Jose, April 15, 1967 Anti-Vietnam war demonstrations, 1968 Democratic National Convention protests, Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District, Fifth Avenue Vietnam Peace Parade Committee, National Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam, John F. Kennedy's speech to the nation on Civil Rights, Heart of Atlanta Motel, Inc. v. United States, Chicago Freedom Movement/Chicago open housing movement, Green v. County School Board of New Kent County, Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights, Council for United Civil Rights Leadership, Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), "Woke Up This Morning (With My Mind Stayed On Freedom)", List of lynching victims in the United States, Birmingham Civil Rights National Monument, Medgar and Myrlie Evers Home National Monument, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Beyond_Vietnam:_A_Time_to_Break_Silence&oldid=1133369048, Wikipedia articles needing page number citations from January 2023, Articles with unsourced statements from January 2023, Articles with unsourced statements from December 2021, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, This page was last edited on 13 January 2023, at 12:35. Such thoughts take us beyond Vietnam, but not beyond our calling as sons of the living God. Before long they must know that their government has sent them into a struggle among Vietnamese, and the more sophisticated surely realize that we are on the side of the wealthy and the secure while we create hell for the poor. A few years ago there was a shining moment. Realistically accept the fact that the National Liberation Front has substantial support in South Vietnam and must thereby play a role in any meaningful negotiations and in any future Vietnam government. And Walt's with us from Cortez in Colorado. We most provide the medical aid that is badly needed, making it available in this country if necessary. Declare a unilateral cease-fire in the hope that such action will create the atmosphere for negotiation. All over the globe men are revolting against old systems of exploitation and oppression and out of the wombs of a frail world new systems of justice and equality are being born. 0000003199 00000 n And after I was wounded, we had four or five 100-pound bomb dropped on us, and 10 Marines were killed outright and 24 were wounded. And he starts out in the opening line at Riverside Church by saying: I am here tonight because my conscience leaves me no other choice. Please contact Intellectual Properties Management (IPM), the exclusive licensor of the Estate of Martin Luther King, Jr., Inc. atlicensing@i-p-m.comor 404 526-8968. A call for equality and freedom, it became one of the defining moments of the civil rights movement and one of the most iconic speeches in American history. But this is, again, precisely what King was concerned about, putting the lives of everyday Americans on the line in a fight that was not winnable and a war that was unjust. They question our political goals and they deny the reality of a peace settlement from which they will be excluded. Though the cause of evil prosper, Yet tis truth alone is strong; Though her portion be the scaffold, And upon the throne be wrong: Yet that scaffold sways the future, And behind the dim unknown, Standeth God within the shadow Keeping watch above his own. I Have a Dream, speech by Martin Luther King, Jr., that was delivered on August 28, 1963, during the March on Washington. And as I ponder the madness of Vietnam and search within myself for ways to understand and respond to compassion my mind goes constantly to the people of that peninsula. 800-989-8255, email us talk@npr.org. And so he does in New York City. I want to thank you, as I know listeners do as well, for your service to this country. Mr. SMILEY: He'd wanted to give it two years earlier and had attempted a dry run at this speech, to your appoint, Neal, a couple of years prior to when he gave it. 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Paul A. Schuette, King Preaches on Non-Violence at Police-Guarded Howard Hall, Washington Post, 3 March 1965. Is it among these voiceless ones? Your donation is fully tax-deductible. Fifty-years ago in April 1967, the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., delivered one of his most memorable, if not controversial sermons, at Riverside Church just steps away from the Columbia University campus. He would no longer be respected. This is TALK OF THE NATION from NPR News in Washington. HT0WJ3 O$L A small donation would help us keep this available to all. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. And King gives a great speech out of that hospital called "If I Had Sneezed." I guess the question now is whether or not Afghanistan is a war of necessity or a war of choice. Do you find this information helpful? Keep in mind now that 1967, Neal, as you know, is the same year that Muhammad Ali, the world champion, decides to not accept that draft to go and fight in Vietnam. Increasingly, by choice or by accident, this is the role our nation has taken the role of those who make peaceful revolution impossible by refusing to give up the privileges and the pleasures that come from the immense profits of overseas investment. I speak for those whose land is being laid waste, whose homes are being destroyed, whose culture is being subverted. It seemed as if there was a real promise of hope for the poor both black and white through the poverty program. Let us not join those who shout war and through their misguided passions urge the United States to relinquish its participation in the United Nations. He had fallen off already the list, as you mentioned, had already fallen off the list of the most admired Americans as tallied by Gallup every year. The war in Vietnam is but a symptom of a far deeper malady within the American spirit, and if we ignore this sobering reality we will find ourselves organizing clergy- and laymen-concerned committees for the next generation. One of the things, I hope, Neal, will happen here is that when people get a chance to see the special, they will be moved - I think they will be - to Google or Bing, whatever search engine you use, to go online, because the speech is so readily available, Neal, as you know. King delivered a speech entitled Beyond Vietnam, pointing out that the war effort was taking the black young men who had been crippled by our society and sending them eight thousand miles away to guarantee liberties in Southeast Asia which they had not found in southwest Georgia and East Harlem (King, Beyond Vietnam, 143). Surely we must understand their feelings even if we do not condone their actions. Nevertheless, I am in a different position as the president of the United States. Not only that, but then-President Lyndon Johnson disinvited King to the White House. These too are our brothers. Martin Luther King April 4, 1967 Riverside Church, New York City . Du Bois to Coretta Scott King: The Untold History of the Movement to Ban the Bomb. At the time, civil rights leaders publicly condemned him for it. However, you argue strongly in the film that it was completely consistent with the nature and the character of Dr. King and something he needed to say. King Scores Poverty). I am convinced that if we are to get on the right side of the world revolution, we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values.
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