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The image of America will never again be the image of revolution, freedom and democracy, but the image of violence and militarism.. Therefore, communism is a judgment against our failure to make democracy real and follow through on the revolutions we initiated. In so many words, powerful interests told him: "Mind your own business.". Carson and Shepard, 2001. Martin Luther King Jr.'s "Beyond Vietnam" was a powerful and angry speech that raged against the war. 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. A true revolution of values will soon look uneasily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth. The recent statement of your executive committee are the sentiments of my own heart and I found myself in full accord when I read its opening lines: A time comes when silence is betrayal. That time has come for us in relation to Vietnam. This speech is not addressed to Hanoi or to the National Liberation Front. The Vietnamese people proclaimed their own independence in 1945 after a combined French and Japanese occupation, and before the Communist revolution in China. Du Bois to Coretta Scott King: The Untold History of the Movement to Ban the Bomb. This is the calling of the sons of God, and our brothers wait eagerly for our response. There were experiments, hopes, new beginnings. 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. 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. The True Martin Luther King, Jr. New York: Free Press. CONAN: Howard, thanks very much for the call. It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring. But for those who presently choose but one, I would hope they will finally come to see the moral roots common to both. 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: On this Wikipedia the language links are at the top of the page across from the article title. No, Howard, I thank you for your phone call. 0000047501 00000 n We have corrupted their women and children and killed their men. 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. n the one hand we are called to play the good Samaritan on lifes roadside; but that will be only an initial act. 0000006515 00000 n King, Remaining Awake Through a Great Revolution, in A Knock at Midnight, ed. Please c, ontact Intellectual Properties Management (IPM), the exclusive licensor of the Estate of Martin Luther King, Jr., Inc. at. 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. 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. PBS talk show host Tavis Smiley's new documentary, MLK: A Call to Conscience explores King's speech. Martin Luther King, Jr. (January 15, 1929 - April 4, 1968) Paul A. Schuette, King Preaches on Non-Violence at Police-Guarded Howard Hall, Washington Post, 3 March 1965. [citation needed]. All Rights Reserved. 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. 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. We most provide the medical aid that is badly needed, making it available in this country if necessary. King led his first anti-war march in Chicago on 25 March 1967, and reinforced the connection between war abroad and injustice at home: The bombs in Vietnam explode at homethey destroy the dream and possibility for a decent America (Dr. 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. 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? "[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. Now let us rededicate ourselves to the long and bitter but beautifulstruggle for a new world. "[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. . After he gives it, 168 major newspapers the next day denounce him. And Walt's with us from Cortez in Colorado. Soon we would be paying almost the full costs of this tragic attempt at recolonization. April 4, 1967: Martin Luther King Jr. Delivers "Beyond Vietnam" Speech Let us hope that this spirit will become the order of the day. At the time, civil rights leaders publicly condemned him for it. It was the speech he labored over the most. What then can I say to the Vietcong or to Castro or to Mao as a faithful minister of this one? Surely we must see that our own computerized plans of destruction simply dwarf their greatest acts. Perhaps only his sense of humor and of irony can save him when he hears the most powerful nation of the world speaking of aggression as it drops thousands of bombs on a poor weak nation more than eight thousand miles away from its shores. It is with such activity in mind that the words of the late John F. Kennedy come back to haunt us. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. And number two, at what cost? When Diem was overthrown they may have been happy, but the long line of military dictatorships seemed to offer no real changeespecially in terms of their need for land and peace. 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. Why are you joining the voices of dissent? But certainly one of the greatest orators of our time. 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. 0000023610 00000 n The Institute cannot give permission to use or reproduce any of the writings, statements, or images of Martin Luther King, Jr. Carson and Holloran, 1998. The situation is one in which we must be ready to turn sharply from our present ways. Attachment 2: Definitions Attachment 3: King Opposed Vietnam War; We Must Oppose US War in Iraq. %PDF-1.3 % CONAN: We (unintelligible) to see it. Do you find this information helpful? 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. Peace and civil rights dont mix, they say. HOWARD: How are you doing, Tavis? President Obama, this is one campaign promise that he has kept. 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. Love is somehow the key that unlocks the door which leads to ultimate reality. 0000003415 00000 n Martin Luther King, Jr.,'s Searing Antiwar Speech, Fifty Years Later 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. 0000009964 00000 n These too are our brothers. Mr. TAVIS SMILEY (Host, "The Tavis Smiley Show"): Neal, always an honor to be on with you. Hundreds of folks listened outside on loudspeakers. 0000013309 00000 n 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. Mr. SMILEY: That's right. 0000001645 00000 n King, Beyond Vietnam, in A Call to Conscience, ed. Can I threaten them with death or must I not share with them my life? 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. Estate of Martin Luther King, Jr., Inc. v. CBS, Inc. Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), African American founding fathers of the United States, Statue of Martin Luther King Jr. (Pueblo, Colorado), Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial, San Francisco. Four years after President John F. Kennedy sent the first American troops into Vietnam, Martin Luther King, Jr., issued his first public statement on the war. 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. W. E. B. Challenges of the final years of Martin Luther King, Jr. [12] 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 0000044282 00000 n 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. On April 4, 1967, exactly one year before his assassination, Martin Luther King Jr. delivered a speech in New York City at Riverside Church on the occasion of his becoming co-chairperson of Clergy and Laymen Concerned About Vietnam (subsequently renamed Clergy and Laity Concerned ). They ask how we can speak of free elections when the Saigon press is censored and controlled by the military junta. 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? While his legacy is commonly remembered by his famous "I Have A Dream" speech, we've sourced four powerful, lesser-known speeches from Dr. King to listen to and commemorate . 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. So all that we have is less than 10 minutes of video of the speech. 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. And thirdly, I think the main point here in this MLK "Beyond Vietnam" speech is that there is another way. Then we must make what reparations we can for the damage we have done. 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 . So he was no longer on that particular list. That's what I feel. CONAN: And there's an interesting point you also make in the film that - or at least some of the participants in your film make - that were he alive today and saying the kinds of things you would expect him to say, given that speech, he probably would not be invited to many Martin Luther King Day celebrations. 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." 50 Years Ago: Dr. King's Anti-War Sermon at Riverside Church CONAN: Walt, thank you. [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. 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. 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 . 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. How Did Martin Luther King Jr Use Of Figurative Language HdTn0+=3hRnm)zK#-t\|Ha)S $25.00. We must rapidly begin the shift from a thing-oriented society to a person-oriented society. Martin Luther King Jr. - Why I Am Opposed to the War in Vietnam 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. For nine years we vigorously supported the French in their abortive effort to recolonize Vietnam. 0000012541 00000 n There are people who have come to see the moral imperative of equality, but who cannot yet see the moral imperative of world brotherhood. MARTIN LUTHER KING JR.: I speak as a child of God and brother to the suffering poor of Vietnam. Seeking to reduce the potential backlash by framing his speech within the context of religious objection to war, King addressed a crowd of 3,000 people at Riverside Church in New York City. 0000004855 00000 n And thank you for sharing what had to be a difficult story to tell. On April 15, 1967, King participated and spoke at an anti-war march from Manhattan's Central Park to the United Nations. When I speak of love I am not speaking of some sentimental and weak response. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. The question is, is it a war of necessity or a war of choice at this point? The moving finger writes, and having writ moves on We still have a choice today; nonviolent coexistence or violent co-annihilation. Rev. 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. How are you, sir? 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. 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. [29], Excerpts from this speech are used in the songs "Together" and "Spirit" by Nordic Giants. 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. They watch as we poison their water, as we kill a million acres of their crops. A Baptist minister and founder of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), King had led the civil rights movement since the mid-1950s, using a combination of impassioned speeches. 0000011068 00000 n "The press is being stacked against me", King said,[13] The choice is ours, and though we might prefer it otherwise we must choose in this crucial moment of human history. But they chose Riverside because King was going to be speaking some days later at a huge rally and march in New York City, and they knew that that rally was going to bring out a different kind of element, a more controversial element. The initiative to stop it must be ours. They wander into the hospitals, with at least twenty casualties from American firepower for one Vietcong-inflicted injury. This is TALK OF THE NATION from NPR News in Washington. 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. Undeterred, King, Spock, and Harry Belafonte led 10,000 demonstrators on an anti-war march to the United Nations on 15 April 1967. Answering press questions after addressing a Howard University audience on 2 March 1965, King asserted that the war in Vietnam was accomplishing nothing and called for a negotiated settlement (Schuette, King Preaches on Non-Violence). 0000011739 00000 n dH(*b(jGB@'k1zTR~{dA9|\b. Check your local listings. The message directly challenged the president who'd taken great political risks to support civil rights legislation and also challenged many of his colleagues in the movement who've called it a tactical mistake. 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. WALT (Caller): Yes. 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 . Of course, he's assassinated in Memphis a year to the day later after giving this speech. PBS talk show. He turned that into a great speech when he got out of the hospital. 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. Martin Luther King's Speech Against the Vietnam War 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. 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. Martin Luther King: Beyond Vietnam and Remaining Awake Through a Great Revolution, 90th Cong., 2d sess., Congressional Record 114 (9 April 1968): 93919397. Beyond Vietnam A Time To Break Silence Rhetorical Precis We must find new ways to speak for peace in Vietnam and justice throughout the developing world a world that borders on our doors. 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. But there was a great turnout for the speech. PDF Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence ~ MLK Speech 1967 - CRM Vet 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. 2. Perhaps the more difficult but no less necessary task is to speak for those who have been designated as our enemies. 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 .
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