martin luther king jr vietnam war speech transcript

King Leads Chicago Peace Rally, New York Times, 26 March 1967. This has driven many to feel that only Marxism has the revolutionary spirit. Where are the roots of the independent Vietnam we claim to be building? 0000010534 00000 n Martin Luther King Jr. was a social activist that led the Civil Rights Movement, and other movements until his assassination in 1968. Dr. Let me say this right quick: The comparisons between what King was addressing then about militarism, poverty and racism sound familiar 45 years later. 0000002025 00000 n 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. 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. He supported Johnsons calls for diplomatic negotiations and economic development as the beginnings of such a step. Of course, again, that philosophy, when the papers got a hold of him the next day, that strategy didn't work so well. And King was prescient on this. MLK: Beyond Vietnam - A Time to Break Silence - YouTube Beyond Vietnam -- A Time to Break Silence - American Rhetoric 0000013330 00000 n A few years ago there was a shining moment. Will our message be that the forces of American life militate against their arrival as full men, and we send our deepest regrets? In order to atone for our sins and errors in Vietnam, we should take the initiative in bringing a halt to this tragic war. So practically everybody in his inner circle was against him giving it - one, because they knew the kind of pushback he was going to get. When we ask why they do not leap to negotiate, these things must be remembered. Undeterred, King, Spock, and Harry Belafonte led 10,000 demonstrators on an anti-war march to the United Nations on 15 April 1967. We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now. 0000007161 00000 n 0000003503 00000 n Finally, as I try to delineate for you and for myself the road that leads from Montgomery to this place I would have offered all that was most valid if I simply said that I must be true to my conviction that I share with all men the calling to be a son of the living God. After the French were defeated it looked as if independence and land reform would come again through the Geneva agreements. (1947) Moranda Smith Addresses The Congress Of Industrial Organizations Annual Convention, Boston, (1974) Congresswoman Barbara Jordans Statement: The Richard Nixon Impeachment Hearings, African American History: Research Guides & Websites, Global African History: Research Guides & Websites, African American Scientists and Technicians of the Manhattan Project, Envoys, Diplomatic Ministers, & Ambassadors, http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/45a/058.html, Foundation, Organization, and Corporate Supporters. Mr. SMILEY: That's right. And the last poll taken in his life by Harris, the Harris Poll, Neal, found that nearly three quarters of the American people, nearly three quarters, had turned against Martin on this issue, and 55 percent of his own people, black folk, had turned against him. We're talking with Tavis Smiley. For as popular as King was, he was a Nobel laureate, there were only one or two news crews who actually came to see the speech that night, Neal. Mr. SMILEY: Yeah. This is an excellent Common Core-aligned primary source from Martin Luther King speaking about his stance on the Vietnam War. Full text of speech. The major speech at Riverside Church in New York City, followed several interviews[2] and several other public speeches in which King came out against the Vietnam War and the policies that created it. Also it must be clear that the leaders of Hanoi considered the presence of American troops in support of the Diem regime to have been the initial military breach of the Geneva agreements concerning foreign troops, and they remind us that they did not begin to send in any large number of supplies or men until American forces had moved into the tens of thousands. Appreciate it. The speech and its echoes for Afghanistan and Iraq are the subject of "Tavis Smiley Reports MLK: A Call to Conscience.". 16, 1967 in New York. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. gave a speech opposing the Vietnam War in April 1967. King to Weigh Civil Disobedience). 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. Dr. King is trying to get the point across that our country is being unfair to others. President Obama, this is one campaign promise that he has kept. 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. Martin Luther King Jr. - Why I Am Opposed to the War in Vietnam So we watch them in brutal solidarity burning the huts of a poor village, but we realize that they would never live on the same block in Detroit. 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. BRC-NEWS: Black Radical Congress International News/Alerts/Announcements , Martin Luther King, Jr., delivering speech. After he gives it, 168 major newspapers the next day denounce him. "It basically ruins their relationship," says Smiley. 0000002427 00000 n Some civil rights leaders urged King not to speak out on the Vietnam War, but he said he could not separate issues of economic injustice, racism, war, and militarism. Fifty years ago in 1967, Martin Luther King, Jr.. %PDF-1.3 % The peasants watched as all this was presided over by U.S. influence and then by increasing numbers of U.S. troops who came to help quell the insurgency that Diems methods had aroused. Beyond the calling of race or nation or creed is this vocation of sonship and brotherhood, and because I believe that the Father is deeply concerned especially for his suffering and helpless and outcast children, I come tonight to speak for them. Even when pressed by the demands of inner truth, men do not easily assume the task of opposing their governments policy, especially in time of war. I have not urged a mechanical fusion of the civil rights and peace movements. 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. And I can't tell young black men, who are being denied right here in the streets of America, that they should offer themselves up and to sign themselves up to go - to do harm to people around the world who they do not know. A Comparative Study of Martin Luther King Jr & Malcolm X. by. n/a martin luther king jr. (born michael king january 15, 1929 april 1968) was an american baptist minister and activist, one of the most prominent leaders in . 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. or 404 526-8968. Martin Luther King Jr. speaks out against the war - HISTORY 0000005696 00000 n I'm Neal Conan. Even though they quoted the American Declaration of Independence in their own document of freedom, we refused to recognize them. 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. Later that year King framed the issue of war in Vietnam as a moral issue: As a minister of the gospel, he said, I consider war an evil. They must see Americans as strange liberators. 1967 speech delivered by Martin Luther King Jr. Life often leaves us standing bare, naked and dejected with a lost opportunity. 0000008347 00000 n Even before the French were defeated at Dien Bien Phu, they began to despair of the reckless action, but we did not. 0000046786 00000 n And when I hear them, though I often understand the source of their concern, I am nevertheless greatly saddened, for such questions mean that the inquirers have not really known me, my commitment or my calling. King 's work to eradicate racial segregation was abruptly halted when he was assassinated on April 4, 1968, on the balcony of Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee. Grossfield, Stan. A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death. Five years ago he said, Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.. [27] Thich Nhat Hanh, who publicly held a news conference in Chicago with King in 1966, was acknowledged for urging King to oppose the Vietnam War. And so he does in New York City. 0000044282 00000 n 0000009985 00000 n There is at the outset a very obvious and almost facile connection between the war in Vietnam and the struggle I, and others, have been waging in America. Martin Luther King Jr. on the Vietnam War - The Atlantic For nine years following 1945 we denied the people of Vietnam the right of independence. But anyway, where he says, I am mindful of those who spoke at this podium, this spot before me, including Martin Luther King and that I stand on his shoulders as a champion of civil rights. And Tavis, nice to have you back in the program. M ost Americans remember Martin Luther King Jr. for his dream of what this country could be, a nation where his children would "not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content. Mr. SMILEY: It's a powerful point made by Clayborne Carson at Stanford who is in charge, as you know, Neal, of the King papers. Moreover I would encourage all ministers of draft age to give up their ministerial exemptions and seek status as conscientious objectors. Those pictures turned Dr. King's stomach. (1997). Your donation is fully tax-deductible. How can they trust us when now we charge them with violence after the murderous reign of Diem and charge them with violence while we pour every new weapon of death into their land? Though he avoided condemning the war outright, at the August 1965 annual Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) convention King called for a halt to bombing in North Vietnam, urged that the United Nations be empowered to mediate the conflict, and told the crowd that what is required is a small first step that may establish a new spirit of mutual confidence a step capable of breaking the cycle of mistrust, violence and war (King, 12 August 1965). There is.a very obvious and almost facile connection between the war in Vietnam and the struggle I and others have been waging in America. 0000011437 00000 n "[14][15], The "Beyond Vietnam" speech reflected King's evolving political advocacy in his later years, which paralleled the teachings of the progressive Highlander Research and Education Center, with which he was affiliated. Martin built his speech that night, Neal, around three major points: around increasing militarism, around escalating poverty and around the issue of racism. Howard's calling us from South Bend. We had to do a whole lot of work in the booth trying to get that audio right. While King was personally opposed to the war, he was concerned that publicly criticizing U.S. foreign policy would damage his relationship with President Lyndon B. Johnson, who had been instrumental in passing civil rights legislation and who had declared in April 1965 that he was willing to negotiate a diplomatic end to the war in Vietnam. For from his view we may indeed see the basic weaknesses of our own condition, and if we are mature, we may learn and grow and profit from the wisdom of the brothers who are called the opposition. We have supported the enemies of the peasants of Saigon. The peasants watched and cringed as Diem ruthlessly routed out all opposition, supported their extortionist landlords and refused even to discuss reunification with the north. CONAN: Well, take us back to 1967. Why are you joining the voices of dissent? Not only that, but then-President Lyndon Johnson disinvited King to the White House. "Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence", also referred as the Riverside Church speech,[1] is an antiVietnam War and prosocial justice speech delivered by Martin Luther King Jr. on April 4, 1967, exactly one year before he was assassinated. 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. PDF Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence ~ MLK Speech 1967 - CRM Vet So it was a great turnout. So far we may have killed a million of them mostly children. Over the bleached bones and jumbled residue of numerous civilizations are written the pathetic words: Too late. There is an invisible book of life that faithfully records our vigilance or our neglect. It was a wonderful, I think, place to give the speech in the sense that it's pretty cavernous. At what cost? MLK Opposed "Poverty, Racism & Militarism" in Speech One Year Before Freedom's Ring: King's "I Have a Dream" Speech, Remaining Awake Through a Great Revolution, Martin Luther King, Jr. - Political and Social Views, Clergy and Laymen Concerned about Vietnam (CALCAV). Martin Luther King Jr. - Acceptance Speech - NobelPrize.org King spoke strongly against the U.S.'s role in the war, arguing that the U.S. was in Vietnam "to occupy it as an American colony" and calling the U.S. government "the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today. 0000007566 00000 n Opposes Vietnam War, New York Times, 11 November 1965. A true revolution of values will lay hands on the world order and say of war: This way of settling differences is not just. This business of burning human beings with napalm, of filling our nations homes with orphans and widows, of injecting poisonous drugs of hate into veins of people normally humane, of sending men home from dark and bloody battlefields physically handicapped and psychologically deranged, cannot be reconciled with wisdom, justice and love. He criticized the Vietnam War and praised Muhammad Ali for being a conscientious objector. They wander into the towns and see thousands of the children, homeless, without clothes, running in packs on the streets like animals. Nor does the human spirit move without great difficulty against all the apathy of conformist thought within ones own bosom and in the surrounding world. Copyright 2010 NPR. "[10], King also criticized American opposition to North Vietnam's land reforms. But Martin understood very clearly that what we ought to be doing at home is being - we are being distracted, rather, by our engagement around the world. I would like to see the fervor of the civil-rights movement imbued into the peace movement to instill it with greater strength. 0000003199 00000 n It seemed as if there was a real promise of hope for the poor both black and white through the poverty program. The peasants may well wonder if we plan to build our new Vietnam on such grounds as these? Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.: "Beyond Vietnam" - Zinn Education Project 159. Twin towers were planned from Afghanistan. We must stop now. As we counsel young men concerning military service we must clarify for them our nations role in Vietnam and challenge them with the alternative of conscientious objection. He did say he was going to increase troop levels in Afghanistan, so he's kept that promise. King's "Beyond Vietnam" speech was delivered at the Riverside Church in New York exactly one year before his assassination. 0000017817 00000 n MARTIN LUTHER KING JR.: I speak as a child of God and brother to the suffering poor of Vietnam. So they go primarily women and children and the aged. Beyond Vietnam: The MLK speech that caused an uproar - USA TODAY "[24] King quoted a United States official who said that from Vietnam to Latin America, the country was "on the wrong side of a world revolution. It was sending their sons and their brothers and their husbands to fight and to die in extraordinarily high proportions relative to the rest of the population. The speech primarily concerns the Memphis sanitation strike.King calls for unity, economic actions, boycotts, and nonviolent protest, while challenging the United States to live . So we have been repeatedly faced with the cruel irony of watching Negro and white boys on TV screens as they kill and die together for a nation that has been unable to seat them together in the same schools. Of course, the Nobel Peace Laureate, a man who clearly believed in nonviolence down to his very soul CONAN: but he'd wanted to give that speech two years earlier. These too are our brothers. Martin Luther King's Beyond Vietnam Speech is in many ways even more relevant today than in 1967. . For the sake of those boys, for the sake of this government, for the sake of hundreds of thousands trembling under our violence, I cannot be silent. Martin Luther King Jr. Dr. King at Ebenezer Church. And I believe everyone has a duty to be in both the civil-rights and peace movements. Arent you hurting the cause of your people, they ask? 3. 0000012541 00000 n They brought in extra chairs. This is TALK OF THE NATION from NPR News in Washington. So even McNamara eventually comes around to that point. I speak as a citizen of the world, for the world as it stands aghast at the path we have taken. The Riverside Church donated largely with Rockefeller money. 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. Although the peace community lauded Kings willingness to take a public stand against the war in Vietnam, many within the civil rights movement further distanced themselves from his stance. The United States got involved in the Vietnam War because they wanted to stop the spread of communism. Somehow this madness must cease. American Rhetoric: Martin Luther King, Jr: A Time to Break Silence (Declaration Against the Vietnam War) M artin L uther K ing, J r. Beyond Vietnam -- A Time to Break Silence Delivered 4 April 1967, Riverside Church, New York City [Photo Credit: John C. Goodwin] [AUTHENTICITY CERTIFIED: Text version below transcribed directly from audio.

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