martin luther king jr vietnam war speech transcript

Some of us who have already begun to break the silence of the night have found that the calling to speak is often a vocation of agony, but we must speak. 0000040748 00000 n 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. 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 . W. E. B. Thanks, as always for your time. His house was bombed. I feel that Martin Luther King and Muhammad Ali are two of the, you know, greatest Americans we've ever had. He passed the Civil Rights Act. Martin Luther King, Jr. utilizes figurative to emphasize the inhumanity and immorality of the war. 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. Moreover I would encourage all ministers of draft age to give up their ministerial exemptions and seek status as conscientious objectors. The situation is one in which we must be ready to turn sharply from our present ways. 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 . 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. Indeed, their questions suggest that they do not know the world in which they live. The great initiative in this war is ours. But certainly one of the greatest orators of our time. [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. Delivered by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. at Manhattan's Riverside Church, April 4, 1967 . Since I am a preacher by trade, I suppose it is not surprising that I have seven major reasons for bringing Vietnam into the field of my moral vision. The moving finger writes, and having writ moves on We still have a choice today; nonviolent coexistence or violent co-annihilation. Martin Luther King Jr. Dr. King at Ebenezer Church. True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar; it is not haphazard and superficial. 0000011068 00000 n 0000002337 00000 n Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence - Wikipedia We must not engage in a negative anti-communism, but rather in a positive thrust for democracy, realizing that our greatest defense against communism is to take offensive action in behalf of justice. So 60 year(ph) is really, really a hot year here around this particular issue. 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 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. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, for example, issued a statement against merging the civil rights and peace movements. 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 . 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. Could it be that they do not know that the good news was meant for all men for Communist and capitalist, for their children and ours, for black and for white, for revolutionary and conservative? 20072023 Blackpast.org. Is it among these voiceless ones? We are now faced with the fact that tomorrow is today. 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. April 4, 1967: Martin Luther King Jr. Delivers "Beyond Vietnam" Speech Dr. King in a March 25, 1967 antiwar march in Chicago. What then can I say to the Vietcong or to Castro or to Mao as a faithful minister of this one? Every man of humane convictions must decide on the protest that best suits his convictions, but we must all protest. King Scores Poverty). Of course, again, that philosophy, when the papers got a hold of him the next day, that strategy didn't work so well. The truth of these words is beyond doubt but the mission to which they call us is a most difficult one. Martin Luther King Jr. was deeply troubled by the Vietnam War for years, but the "Beyond Vietnam" speech was his first major policy statement on the issue. 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. "[9] He stated that North Vietnam "did not begin to send in any large number of supplies or men until American forces had arrived in the tens of thousands", and accused the U.S. of having killed a million Vietnamese, "mostly children. They will be concerned about Mozambique and South Africa. 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. 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. Appreciate it. What liberators? I come to this magnificent house of worship tonight because my conscience leaves me no other choice. There is nothing, except a tragic death wish, to prevent us from reordering our priorities, so that the pursuit of peace will take precedence over the pursuit of war. Declare a unilateral cease-fire in the hope that such action will create the atmosphere for negotiation. So when the president suggests - and whether directly or indirectly, intentionally or unintentionally diminishes in that Nobel speech Martin's powerful, nonviolent philosophy, it tweaked some people, and you'll see that in the presentation Wednesday night. [11], King's opposition cost him significant support among white allies, including President Johnson, Billy Graham,[citation needed] union leaders and powerful publishers. 0000004621 00000 n %PDF-1.3 % So far we may have killed a million of them mostly children. Jazmyn Ford. "The press is being stacked against me", King said,[13] But LBJ disinvites him to the White House. 0000001616 00000 n 2/QB(yQVz^*oU.FW 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. Take immediate steps to prevent other battlegrounds in Southeast Asia by curtailing our military buildup in Thailand and our interference in Laos. CONAN: We're talking with Tavis Smiley about his PBS special, "Tavis Smiley Reports MLK: A Call to Conscience." 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. 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 They were led by Ho Chi Minh. Before the end of the war we were meeting eighty percent of the French war costs. 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. Martin Luther King Jr. held his acceptance speech in the auditorium of the University of Oslo on 10 December 1964. He supported Johnsons calls for diplomatic negotiations and economic development as the beginnings of such a step. Arent you hurting the cause of your people, they ask? All rights reserved. Martin Luther King Jr.'s "Beyond Vietnam" was a powerful and angry speech that raged against the war. History is cluttered with the wreckage of nations and individuals that pursued this self-defeating path of hate. P: (650) 723-2092 | F: (650) 723-2093 | kinginstitute@stanford.edu| Campus Map. 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. By the time King made the "Beyond Vietnam" speech, Smiley tells host Neal Conan, "he had fallen off already the list of most-admired Americans as tallied by Gallup every year." 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. [citation needed]. 0000002694 00000 n Beyond Vietnam A Time To Break Silence Rhetorical Precis CONAN: "MLK: A Call to Conscience" premieres on PBS tomorrow night. 0000012562 00000 n 2. In "People and Peace, not Profits and War," Shirley Chisholm repeats the words "two more years" (42). 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. And that's the issue that King was raising. They question our political goals and they deny the reality of a peace settlement from which they will be excluded. 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. And what really got him to the point of figuring that he really, really had to address this again back to the children, he couldn't say to young folks in this country who were being denied, that they should engage nonviolence as a philosophy when he saw the children, when he saw these pictures of these Vietnamese children being bombed and the impact - the effect that napalm was having on their bodies. So it was a great turnout. 0000003503 00000 n During the past ten years we have seen emerge a pattern of suppression which now has justified the presence of U.S. military advisors in Venezuela. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. - Zinn Education Project 0000017817 00000 n In so many words, powerful interests told him: "Mind your own business.". After the French were defeated it looked as if independence and land reform would come again through the Geneva agreements. President Obama, this is one campaign promise that he has kept. King Leads Chicago). Mr. SMILEY: Yeah. Beyond Vietnam: The MLK speech that caused an uproar - USA TODAY And so he does in New York City. Communism will never be defeated by the use of atomic bombs or nuclear weapons. I've Been to the Mountaintop - Wikipedia And at that march, he knew there would be people, as you point out in the film, waving Vietnamese flags and chanting CONAN: Ho, Ho, Ho Chi Minh, NLF is going to win, and that sort of thing and it would clearly be taken in a very different context. These are revolutionary times. April 30, 1967: "Why I Am Opposed to the War in Vietnam" Speech Those pictures turned Dr. King's stomach. Dr. 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. They watch as we poison their water, as we kill a million acres of their crops. He knows the bombing and shelling and mining we are doing are part of traditional pre-invasion strategy. 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. In that address, he articulated his reasons for his opposition to the Southeast Asian conflict. A Call to Conscience: The Landmark Speeches of Martin Luther King, Jr. Martin Luther King, who was already beginning to lose some of his influence, nevertheless made a huge challenge to the establishment. In the light of such tragic misunderstandings, I deem it of signal importance to try to state clearly, and I trust concisely, why I believe that the path from Dexter Avenue Baptist Church the church in Montgomery, Alabama, where I began my pastorate leads clearly to this sanctuary tonight. We can no longer afford to worship the god of hate or bow before the altar of retaliation. They must see Americans as strange liberators. Because, to your point now, one, I want people to go online and read the speech so you can see the text for yourself. The world now demands a maturity of America that we may not be able to achieve. 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 . 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. "This was a huge, huge speech," he continues, "that got Martin King in more trouble than anything he had ever seen or done. They brought in extra chairs. 4. So all that we have is less than 10 minutes of video of the speech. As the head of state, I cannot necessarily embrace the same principles that, as you point out, Martin Luther King, a prophet, an outsider could embrace. 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. Martin Luther King, Jr. believed that peace and economic justice were critical to his fight for human rights. 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. As that noble bard of yesterday, James Russell Lowell, eloquently stated: Once to every man and nation Comes the moment to decide, In the strife of truth and falsehood, For the good or evil side; Some great cause, Gods new Messiah, Offring each the bloom or blight, And the choice goes by forever Twixt that darkness and that light. Now let us begin. I speak as a child of God and brother to the suffering poor of Vietnam. Let me say this right quick: The comparisons between what King was addressing then about militarism, poverty and racism sound familiar 45 years later. 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. And I believe everyone has a duty to be in both the civil-rights and peace movements. They wander into the towns and see thousands of the children, homeless, without clothes, running in packs on the streets like animals. Even before the French were defeated at Dien Bien Phu, they began to despair of the reckless action, but we did not. 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]. Mr. SMILEY: Yeah. "It basically ruins their relationship," says Smiley. We're talking with Tavis Smiley. I've always thought that was, to me, his best speech, his most consequential speech, even better than I have a dream in the mountain top speech. Perhaps the more tragic recognition of reality took place when it became clear to me that the war was doing far more than devastating the hopes of the poor at home. For nine years we vigorously supported the French in their abortive effort to recolonize Vietnam. As we all know, Neal, before he died, Robert McNamara, the Defense secretary that had Walt and others over in Vietnam, before he died, of course, announced that he was wrong. Before he was assassinated at age 39, the Rev. 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. So they go primarily women and children and the aged. (AFP via Getty Images) "Why are you speaking about the war, Dr. King? What must they think of us in America when they realize that we permitted the repression and cruelty of Diem which helped to bring them into being as a resistance group in the south? A true revolution of values will soon cause us to question the fairness and justice of many of our past and present policies. 159. 0000008326 00000 n Mr. SMILEY: Indeed he did, Neal. There were a lot of people inside. Martin Luther King Jr. on the Vietnam War - The Atlantic 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 . 0000011437 00000 n Sorry, I'm a little bit emotional here. When he saw those pictures, there's a very famous picture, Neal, that we all know of a Vietnamese girl running naked in the streets who had just been, you know, had been victimized as had her village by these napalm attacks. CONAN: Walt, thank you. Excuse me. 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? In December 1966, testifying before a congressional subcommittee on budget priorities, King argued for a rebalancing of fiscal priorities away from Americas obsession with Vietnam and toward greater support for anti-poverty programs at home (Semple, Dr. CONAN: Howard, thanks very much for the call. Beyond Vietnam: The MLK speech that caused an uproar. 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. 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. Instead, we decided to support France in its reconquest of her former colony. If we love one another God dwelleth in us, and his love is perfected in us. That Vietnam was a mistake. 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. In his 1967 speech on the Vietnam War, Martin Luther King, Jr. employs figurative language and syntactical elements to construct his argument against the hypocrisy and cruelty of American involvement in the war. 0000010534 00000 n Not only that, but then-President Lyndon Johnson disinvited King to the White House. Beyond Vietnam -- A Time to Break Silence - American Rhetoric 0000003415 00000 n 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. We have corrupted their women and children and killed their men. (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. 0000001700 00000 n This Hindu-Moslem-Christian-Jewish-Buddhist belief about ultimate reality is beautifully summed up in the first epistle of Saint John: Let us love one another; for love is God and everyone that loveth is born of God and knoweth God. Undeterred, King, Spock, and Harry Belafonte led 10,000 demonstrators on an anti-war march to the United Nations on 15 April 1967.

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