What of the National Liberation Front that strangely anonymous group we call VC or Communists? Dr. I come to this platform tonight to make a passionate plea to my beloved nation. There is something seductively tempting about stopping there and sending us all off on what in some circles has become a popular crusade against the war in Vietnam. At what cost? 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? Now there is little left to build onsave bitterness. So I was increasingly compelled to see the war as an enemy of the poor and to attack it as such. CONAN: And I think a lot of people will see your parallels regarding Iraq, where, indeed, the United States was the aggressor in that conflict. Part of our ongoing commitment might well express itself in an offer to grant asylum to any Vietnamese who fears for his life under a new regime which included the Liberation Front. Ho Chi Minh has watched as America has spoken of peace and built up its forces, and now he has surely heard of the increasing international rumors of American plans for an invasion of the north. It is not addressed to China or to Russia. 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. They asked if our own nation wasnt using massive doses of violence to solve its problems, to bring about the changes it wanted. 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. $25.00. 3. Opposes Vietnam War, New York Times, 11 November 1965. 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. 0000009168 00000 n Therefore the first hope in our inventory must be the hope that love is going to have the last word.. Perhaps a new spirit is rising among us. 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. 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. A true revolution of values will soon look uneasily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth. Tonight, however, I wish not to speak with Hanoi and the NLF, but rather to my fellow Americans, who, with me, bear the greatest responsibility in ending a conflict that has exacted a heavy price on both continents. Martin Luther King Jr.'s "Beyond Vietnam" was a powerful and angry speech that raged against the war. Excuse me. Neither is it an attempt to make North Vietnam or the National Liberation Front paragons of virtue, nor to overlook the role they can play in a successful resolution of the problem. Indeed, their questions suggest that they do not know the world in which they live. [18] He guarded his language in public to avoid being linked to communism by his enemies, but in private he sometimes spoke of his support for democratic socialism. BlackPast.org is a 501(c)(3) non-profit and our EIN is 26-1625373. 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. It includes a portion of his speech. You're listening to TALK OF THE NATION from NPR News. 0000011437 00000 n Of course, he's assassinated in Memphis a year to the day later after giving this speech. JwNt YHiA:{p . Q%F70%iR! 0000002784 00000 n "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. Fifty years ago in 1967, Martin Luther King, Jr.. Due to the Vietnam War is that plenty of individuals, both Americans and Vietnamese were killed. 0000046786 00000 n Sermons and speeches of Martin Luther King Jr. "Vincent Harding dies at 82; historian wrote controversial King speech", "Vincent Harding, author of Martin Luther King Jr.'s antiwar speech, dies", "The Rev. Then we must make what reparations we can for the damage we have done. They wander into the hospitals, with at least twenty casualties from American firepower for one Vietcong-inflicted injury. And he said these three issues of racism and poverty and militarism are going to destroy this nation. So he was no longer on that particular list. Well, it was taken in that context, anyway. [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. ", In 1967, a year to the day before his death, Martin Luther King, Jr. departed from his message of civil rights to deliver a speech that denounced America's war in Vietnam. [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 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. And they are surely right to wonder what kind of new government we plan to help form without them the only party in real touch with the peasants. But instead there came the United States, determined that Ho should not unify the temporarily divided nation, and the peasants watched again as we supported one of the most vicious modern dictators our chosen man, Premier Diem. He was stabbed at one time. "[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. "MLK: A Call to Conscience" premieres on PBS tomorrow night. In 1957 a sensitive American official overseas said that it seemed to him that our nation was on the wrong side of a world revolution. This oft misunderstood and misinterpreted conceptso readily dismissed by the Nietzsches of the world as a weak and cowardly forcehas now become an absolute necessity for the survival of man. This is Howard, which you know me. The truth of these words is beyond doubt but the mission to which they call us is a most difficult one. We will be marching for these and a dozen other names and attending rallies without end unless there is a significant and profound change in American life and policy. And King was prescient on this. 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. A Comparative Study of Martin Luther King Jr & Malcolm X. by. Mr. SMILEY: Indeed, he did. "I've Been to the Mountaintop" is the popular name of the last speech delivered by Martin Luther King Jr. King spoke on April 3, 1968, at the Mason Temple (Church of God in Christ Headquarters) in Memphis, Tennessee. This speech is not addressed to Hanoi or to the National Liberation Front. All the while the people read our leaflets and received regular promises of peace and democracy and land reform. CONAN: Indeed. Or will there be another message, of longing, of hope, of solidarity with their yearnings, of commitment to their cause, whatever the cost? 5. The shirtless and barefoot people of the land are rising up as never before. He turned that into a great speech when he got out of the hospital. complaining of what he described as a double standard that applauded his nonviolence at home, but deplored it when applied "toward little brown Vietnamese children. Afghanistan, not so much. They were led by Ho Chi Minh. There are people who have come to see the moral imperative of equality, but who cannot yet see the moral imperative of world brotherhood. 2/QB(yQVz^*oU.FW The cornerstones of his activism were based on non-violence and civil disobedience, both of which were inspired by his Christian faith and the teachings of Mahatma Gandhi. In this speech, he opposes violence and militarism, particularly the war in Vietnam. Robert B. Semple, Jr., Dr. The world now demands a maturity of America that we may not be able to achieve. What do they think of our condoning the violence which led to their own taking up of arms? Moreover when the issues at hand seem as perplexed as they often do in the case of this dreadful conflict we are always on the verge of being mesmerized by uncertainty; but we must move on. 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. If Dr. King were to say to the organizers of these events, I'd like to show up at your church on Sunday morning, at your rally this weekend, and here's what I want to say, there is a good argument to be made that Dr. King himself might not be welcome - might not be allowed to say what was in his heart, what his conscience really was, given the political correctness of the world that we live in today. The only change came from America as we increased our troop commitments in support of governments which were singularly corrupt, inept and without popular support. So this was a huge, huge speech that got Martin King in more trouble than anything he had ever said or done. We must with positive action seek to remove those conditions of poverty, insecurity and injustice which are the fertile soil in which the seed of communism grows and develops. 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. 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. What liberators? 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. 0000002427 00000 n This need to maintain social stability for our investments accounts for the counter-revolutionary action of American forces in Guatemala. But they didn't stay for the speech in its entirety. Forego a bottle of soda and donate its cost to us for the information you just learned, and feel good about helping to make it available to everyone. I speak for those whose land is being laid waste, whose homes are being destroyed, whose culture is being subverted. Take immediate steps to prevent other battlegrounds in Southeast Asia by curtailing our military buildup in Thailand and our interference in Laos. A complete unit of instruction - include ALL answer documents - comparing and contrasting Dr. Martin Luther King Jr and Malcom X's early lives & speeches.This unit of study, which can be taught as a complete unit, or separated into 13 distinct activities . Watch a newsfilm clip of the speech . King Scores Poverty). Every nation must now develop an overriding loyalty to mankind as a whole in order to preserve the best in their individual societies. When you read the speech, if you replace the word Vietnam, every time it pops up, with the word Iraq, Afghanistan or Pakistan, you will be - it will blow your mind at how King, where he alive today at 81, could really stand up and give that same speech and just replace, again, Vietnam with Iraq and Afghanistan. In Martin Luther King Jr.'s Vietnam speech, lines 413-416, he repeats the phrase "this is not just" (161). King delivered the speech, sponsored by the group Clergy and Laymen Concerned About Vietnam, after committing to participate in New York's April 15, 1967 anti-Vietnam war march from Central Park to the United Nations, sponsored by the Spring Mobilization to End the War in Vietnam. 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. [29], Excerpts from this speech are used in the songs "Together" and "Spirit" by Nordic Giants. Grossfield, Stan. The New York Times calls it wasteful and self-defeating. Where are the roots of the independent Vietnam we claim to be building? His house was bombed. I speak as a child of God and brother to the suffering poor of Vietnam. Appreciate it. Over the past two years, as I have moved to break the betrayal of my own silences and to speak from the burnings of my own heart, as I have called for radical departures from the destruction of Vietnam, many persons have questioned me about the wisdom of my path. 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." PBS talk show host Tavis Smiley's new documentary, MLK: A Call to Conscience explores King's speech. Not only that, but then-President Lyndon Johnson disinvited King to the White House. 0000001645 00000 n In 1968, King was planning a national occupation of Washington, D., to be called the Poor People's Campaign, when he was assassinated on April 4 in . It demands that we admit that we have been wrong from the beginning of our adventure in Vietnam, that we have been detrimental to the life of the Vietnamese people. And we are spending money for a war abroad that ought to be spent for the war on poverty here at home. Ken Rudin joins guest host Rebecca Roberts. Here is the true meaning and value of compassion and nonviolence when it helps us to see the enemys point of view, to hear his questions, to know his assessment of ourselves. A few years ago there was a shining moment in that. And it was on that occasion that he - when he saw those pictures, said, I have to speak out about this. His wife, Coretta Scott King, took a more active role in opposing the war, speaking at a rally at the Washington Monument on 27 November 1965 with Benjamin Spock, the renowned pediatrician and anti-war activist, and joined in other demonstrations. 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. Perhaps the more difficult but no less necessary task is to speak for those who have been designated as our enemies. That's what I feel. I join with you in this meeting because I am in deepest agreement with the aims and work of the organization which has brought us together: Clergy and Laymen Concerned about Vietnam. And let's see if we can get another caller on the line. [11], King's opposition cost him significant support among white allies, including President Johnson, Billy Graham,[citation needed] union leaders and powerful publishers. I would like to suggest five concrete things that our government should do immediately to begin the long and difficult process of extricating ourselves from this nightmarish conflict: 1. 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). 0000009985 00000 n True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar; it is not haphazard and superficial. I speak for those whose land is being laid waste, whose homes are being destroyed, whose. 0000002004 00000 n Screenshots are considered by the King Estate a violation of this notice. 0000003996 00000 n Mr. SMILEY: We - let me just tell you this. It was the speech he labored over the most. After the French were defeated it looked as if independence and land reform would come again through the Geneva agreements. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. gave a speech opposing the Vietnam War in April 1967. It makes for an excellent teaching tool for a unit on the Civil Rights Movement, Cold War and Vietnam, or as a bridge to combine the two! 39 0 obj << /Linearized 1 /O 44 /H [ 1739 286 ] /L 149455 /E 105346 /N 8 /T 148557 >> endobj xref 39 54 0000000016 00000 n I think of them too because it is clear to me that there will be no meaningful solution there until some attempt is made to know them and hear their broken cries. AFP/AFP/Getty Images 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. [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. And thank you for sharing what had to be a difficult story to tell. In his last Sunday sermon, delivered at the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C., on 31 March 1968, King said that he was convinced that [Vietnam] is one of the most unjust wars that has ever been fought in the history of the world (King, Remaining Awake, 219). 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. between the war in Vietnam and the struggle I, and others, have been waging in America. 0000013330 00000 n Copy of full text of the "Beyond Vietnam" speech. And I think most Americans know the "I Have A Dream" speech. King Leads Chicago). They wander into the towns and see thousands of the children, homeless, without clothes, running in packs on the streets like animals. "The press is being stacked against me", King said,[13] How do they judge us when our officials know that their membership is less than twenty-five percent Communist and yet insist on giving them the blanket name? And King had preached at this church any number of times before, of course. 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 basically ruins their relationship," says Smiley. So you got a Nobel laureate named King, a war president with a Nobel Prize named Obama, for all that we have done over the last two years to wed King and Obama together on T- shirts and everywhere else, were King alive today at 81, he and Obama would have a tension point, Neal, on this issue. All Rights Reserved. Soon we would be paying almost the full costs of this tragic attempt at recolonization. They must see Americans as strange liberators. NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. And I think that if nothing else what we need to wrestle with in a contemporary sense, Neal, is the question of whether or not there is another way that King would have us consider were he allowed to do. Why are you joining the voices of dissent? And they, as news crews tend to do, they stayed to get just enough B-roll, as we call it Mr. SMILEY: for the news that night. A few years ago there was a shining moment in that struggle. 0000008347 00000 n King had read Marx while at Morehouse, but while he rejected "traditional capitalism", he also rejected communism because of its "materialistic interpretation of history" that denied religion, its "ethical relativism", and its "political totalitarianism. 0000017817 00000 n 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. We were 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. Shall we say the odds are too great? This quote is from a sermon by Dr. King on April 30, 1967 at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, Georgia, drawing from his infamous April 4 sermon at Riverside Church. That night Dr. King shocked the world and his followers when . Beyond Vietnam2 in that . Mr. SMILEY: Indeed he did, Neal. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. led the 1955 Montgomery bus boycott, organized the 1963 March on Washington, advocated for civil disobedience and. 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. But they asked and rightly so what about Vietnam? 0000007566 00000 n Declare a unilateral cease-fire in the hope that such action will create the atmosphere for negotiation. In order to atone for our sins and errors in Vietnam, we should take the initiative in bringing a halt to this tragic war. His speech appears below. I just wanted to say that I was an 18-year-old Marine in Vietnam when the speech was given, and I didn't hear it until three or four years ago. And King gives a great speech out of that hospital called "If I Had Sneezed." We are adding cynicism to the process of death, for they must know after a short period there that none of the things we claim to be fighting for are really involved. 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. Meanwhile we in the churches and synagogues have a continuing task while we urge our government to disengage itself from a disgraceful commitment. Martin Luther King's Acceptance Speech, on the occasion of the award of the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo, 10 December 1964 Your Majesty, Your Royal Highness, Mr. President, Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen: [24], King's stance on Vietnam encouraged Allard K. Lowenstein, William Sloane Coffin and Norman Thomas, with the support of anti-war Democrats, to attempt to persuade King to run against President Johnson in the 1968 United States presidential election. Is our nation planning to build on political myth again and then shore it up with the power of new violence? I speak now not of the soldiers of each side, not of the junta in Saigon, but simply of the people who have been living under the curse of war for almost three continuous decades now. trailer << /Size 93 /Info 36 0 R /Root 40 0 R /Prev 148547 /ID[<8f2b4dd6f2f061944c7ff807c44fcc1f><651247ae294a1a197a948cb3bc3f8412>] >> startxref 0 %%EOF 40 0 obj << /Type /Catalog /Pages 38 0 R /Metadata 37 0 R /Threads 41 0 R /Names 43 0 R /OpenAction [ 44 0 R /XYZ null null null ] /PageMode /UseNone /PageLabels 35 0 R >> endobj 41 0 obj [ 42 0 R ] endobj 42 0 obj << /I << /Title (A)>> /F 45 0 R >> endobj 43 0 obj << /Dests 33 0 R >> endobj 91 0 obj << /S 76 /E 200 /L 216 /Filter /FlateDecode /Length 92 0 R >> stream CONAN: We (unintelligible) to see it. 0000004855 00000 n In that address, he articulated his reasons for his opposition to the Southeast Asian conflict. 0000009964 00000 n Let's go to Walt(ph). And his argument, basically, was that I cannot, as a practitioner and a true believer in nonviolence, espouse that nonviolent philosophy in our movement and then somehow sit idly by when I see violence being engaged around the world. No, Howard, I thank you for your phone call. 0000001700 00000 n Speeches, writings, movements, and protests, Opposition to United States involvement in the Vietnam War, Spring Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam. Love is somehow the key that unlocks the door which leads to ultimate reality. Martin Luther King, Jr. utilizes figurative to emphasize the inhumanity and immorality of the war. Their questions are frighteningly relevant. But the entire speech, of course, thankfully, was recorded on audio. MARTIN LUTHER KING JR.: I speak as a child of God and brother to the suffering poor of Vietnam. WALT (Caller): Yes. 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. 20072023 Blackpast.org. I come to this magnificent house of worship tonight because my conscience leaves me no other choice. 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. What do the peasants think as we ally ourselves with the landlords and as we refuse to put any action into our many words concerning land reform? If you remember the speech, tell us what it meant at that time, and does the principle of nonviolence apply in the age of al-Qaida? Du Bois to Coretta Scott King: The Untold History of the Movement to Ban the Bomb. What must they be thinking when they know that we are aware of their control of major sections of Vietnam and yet we appear ready to allow national elections in which this highly organized political parallel government will have no part? 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? But I'm hoping that people will get a chance, once they see the speech, they'll be moved to go read the speech and to make comparisons, Neal. Our government felt then that the Vietnamese people were not ready for independence, and we again fell victim to the deadly Western arrogance that has poisoned the international atmosphere for so long. U.S. House Select Committee on Assassinations, Martin Luther King Jr. Records Collection Act, King: A Filmed Record Montgomery to Memphis, The Witness: From the Balcony of Room 306, Martin Luther King and the Montgomery Story, Joseph Schwantner: New Morning for the World; Nicolas Flagello: The Passion of Martin Luther King. And thirdly, I think the main point here in this MLK "Beyond Vietnam" speech is that there is another way. The problem was that practically everyone in his inner circle - not all, there was James Bevel and a couple of others - but practically everyone in his inner circle advised him strongly not to give this speech.
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