So far we may have killed a million of them mostly children. 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. 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. "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. After the French were defeated it looked as if independence and land reform would come again through the Geneva agreements. A Call to Conscience: The Landmark Speeches of Martin Luther King, Jr. And thirdly, I think the main point here in this MLK "Beyond Vietnam" speech is that there is another way. 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. How Martin Luther King, Jr.'s multifaceted view on human rights still So even McNamara eventually comes around to that point. 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. This is TALK OF THE NATION from NPR News in Washington. 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. 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. They watch as we poison their water, as we kill a million acres of their crops. Excuse me. 0000002025 00000 n Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. gave a speech opposing the Vietnam War in April 1967. That Vietnam was a mistake. CONAN: "MLK: A Call to Conscience" premieres on PBS tomorrow night. Delivered by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. at Manhattan's Riverside Church, April 4, 1967 . A few years ago there was a shining moment. It is with such activity in mind that the words of the late John F. Kennedy come back to haunt us. HOWARD: How are you doing, Tavis? dH(*b(jGB@'k1zTR~{dA9|\b. And that's the issue that King was raising. Martin Luther King Jr. on the Vietnam War - The Atlantic 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. King, Beyond Vietnam, in A Call to Conscience, ed. (1967) Martin Luther King, Jr., "Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence" For those who ask the question, Arent you a civil rights leader? and thereby mean to exclude me from the movement for peace, I have this further answer. Screenshots are considered by the King Estate a violation of this notice. Where are the roots of the independent Vietnam we claim to be building? This speech is not addressed to Hanoi or to the National Liberation Front. 0000002004 00000 n In order to atone for our sins and errors in Vietnam, we should take the initiative in bringing a halt to this tragic war. 0000005717 00000 n 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. 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. Is it among these voiceless ones? HdTn0+=3hRnm)zK#-t\|Ha)S Surely we must see that our own computerized plans of destruction simply dwarf their greatest acts. Your donation is fully tax-deductible. And let's see if we can get another caller on the line. Could we blame them for such thoughts? 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 . 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). 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. [12] Let's go to Walt(ph). Let me say this right quick: The comparisons between what King was addressing then about militarism, poverty and racism sound familiar 45 years later. The great initiative in this war is ours. Rev. He passed the Voting Rights Act. There is nothing to keep us from molding a recalcitrant status quo with bruised hands until we have fashioned it into a brotherhood. It includes a portion of his speech. The Reverend Martin Luther King Jr ., head of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, delivers a speech entitled "Beyond Vietnam" in front of 3,000 people at Riverside Church in. 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. 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. These are the times for real choices and not false ones. I speak as a child of God and brother to the suffering poor of Vietnam. 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. But there was a great turnout for the speech. He criticized the Vietnam War and praised Muhammad Ali for being a conscientious objector. But certainly one of the greatest orators of our time. This speech was enormously controversial. Mr. SMILEY: Well, I think the question is whether or not - I hear your point, Neal, and I take it. 0000004855 00000 n "[22] 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. A few years ago there was a shining moment in that struggle. Jazmyn Ford. 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 . Mr. SMILEY: Yeah. We must stop now. He turned that into a great speech when he got out of the hospital. 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. Well, it was taken in that context, anyway. We have destroyed their land and their crops. 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. Martin Luther King, who was already beginning to lose some of his influence, nevertheless made a huge challenge to the establishment. Surely we must see that the men we supported pressed them to their violence. A small donation would help us keep this available to all. 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. So, too, with Hanoi. We must find new ways to speak for peace in Vietnam and justice throughout the developing world a world that borders on our doors. 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. What do they think of our condoning the violence which led to their own taking up of arms? Martin Luther King, Jr.,'s Searing Antiwar Speech, Fifty Years Later 0000003199 00000 n So they go primarily women and children and the aged. And Walt's with us from Cortez in Colorado. "[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. Paul A. Schuette, King Preaches on Non-Violence at Police-Guarded Howard Hall, Washington Post, 3 March 1965. 2. Can I threaten them with death or must I not share with them my life? Attachment 2: Definitions Attachment 3: King Opposed Vietnam War; We Must Oppose US War in Iraq. 800-989-8255, email us talk@npr.org. 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. On April 15, 1967, King participated and spoke at an anti-war march from Manhattan's Central Park to the United Nations. 0000043425 00000 n Beyond Vietnam -- A Time to Break Silence - American Rhetoric 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. These are revolutionary times. All Rights Reserved. 0000002694 00000 n 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. 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. 2/QB(yQVz^*oU.FW Please c, ontact Intellectual Properties Management (IPM), the exclusive licensor of the Estate of Martin Luther King, Jr., Inc. at. Now let us rededicate ourselves to the long and bitter but beautifulstruggle for a new world. I would like to see the fervor of the civil-rights movement imbued into the peace movement to instill it with greater strength. Perhaps the more difficult but no less necessary task is to speak for those who have been designated as our enemies. And King was prescient on this. CONAN: Indeed. They wander into the hospitals, with at least twenty casualties from American firepower for one Vietcong-inflicted injury. 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. 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. 0000023610 00000 n I speak as an American to the leaders of my own nation. n the one hand we are called to play the good Samaritan on lifes roadside; but that will be only an initial act. 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. Tavis Smiley joins us today from the Sheryl Flowers Studios in Los Angeles. 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. Not only that, but then-President Lyndon Johnson disinvited King to the White House. 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? or 404 526-8968. Life magazine called the speech "demagogic slander that sounded like a script for Radio Hanoi",[9] and The Washington Post declared that King had "diminished his usefulness to his cause, his country, his people. A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death. 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. Mr. SMILEY: We - let me just tell you this. No, Howard, I thank you for your phone call. MARTIN LUTHER KING JR.: I speak as a child of God and brother to the suffering poor of Vietnam. 0000007161 00000 n In Martin Luther King Jr.'s Vietnam speech, lines 413-416, he repeats the phrase "this is not just" (161). 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 Peace and civil rights dont mix, they say. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. - Zinn Education Project The situation is one in which we must be ready to turn sharply from our present ways. I Have a Dream | Date, Quotations, & Facts | Britannica (1997). 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. King Scores Poverty). Grossfield, Stan. 0000017817 00000 n The peasants may well wonder if we plan to build our new Vietnam on such grounds as these? The authoritative record of NPRs programming is the audio record. How are you, sir? 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. 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? 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. Had the president stopped by giving Martin King his just respect - as he did, to his credit - it would have been okay. 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. The march was organized by the Spring Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam and initiated by its chairman, James Bevel. We must be prepared to match actions with words by seeking out every creative means of protest possible. His house was bombed. 0000009964 00000 n It was the speech he labored over the most. 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. 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. 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 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. 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. Martin Luther King Jr. - Acceptance Speech - NobelPrize.org 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 see the children, degraded by our soldiers as they beg for food. Moreover I would encourage all ministers of draft age to give up their ministerial exemptions and seek status as conscientious objectors. [6], 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. And so he does in New York City. 0000002427 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. 0000008347 00000 n Or will there be another message, of longing, of hope, of solidarity with their yearnings, of commitment to their cause, whatever the cost? 0000005696 00000 n King to Weigh Civil Disobedience). Vietnam War | The Martin Luther King, Jr., Research and Education Institute Vietnam War Event May 11, 1961 to April 30, 1975 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. Mr. SMILEY: Neal, thank you for the opportunity. 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. 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. There were a lot of people inside. All the while the people read our leaflets and received regular promises of peace and democracy and land reform. He was one of the most important and influential Civil Rights leaders in the 1950s and 1960s. 20072023 Blackpast.org. A Comparative Study of Martin Luther King Jr & Malcolm X. by. Beyond Vietnam2 in that . [11], King's opposition cost him significant support among white allies, including President Johnson, Billy Graham,[citation needed] union leaders and powerful publishers. 0000011739 00000 n So I was increasingly compelled to see the war as an enemy of the poor and to attack it as such. How can they believe in our integrity when now we speak of aggression from the north as if there were nothing more essential to the war? And that's just the Times and the Post. This is an excellent Common Core-aligned primary source from Martin Luther King speaking about his stance on the Vietnam War. 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. This is the calling of the sons of God, and our brothers wait eagerly for our response. After he gives it, 168 major newspapers the next day denounce him. [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". 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. At the U.N. King also brought up issues of civil rights and the draft. And number two, at what cost? They question our political goals and they deny the reality of a peace settlement from which they will be excluded. 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. People And Peace Not Profits And War Rhetorical Devices 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? The Riverside Church donated largely with Rockefeller money. ", After King delivered the speech, Smiley reports, "168 major newspapers the next day denounced him." 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? Mr. TAVIS SMILEY (Host, "The Tavis Smiley Show"): Neal, always an honor to be on with you. A genuine revolution of values means in the final analysis that our loyalties must become ecumenical rather than sectional. 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. The initiative to stop it must be ours. capitalism, and the Vietnam War. 0000044282 00000 n 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. The Institute cannot give permission to use or reproduce any of the writings, statements, or images of Martin Luther King, Jr. But for those who presently choose but one, I would hope they will finally come to see the moral roots common to both. But most Americans, I think, do not know this speech, "Beyond Vietnam.". Perhaps a new spirit is rising among us. Legendary civil rights leader Rev. So this was a huge, huge speech that got Martin King in more trouble than anything he had ever said or done. 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. He rarely gave speeches from a text. Have they forgotten that my ministry is in obedience to the one who loved his enemies so fully that he died for them? We must continue to raise our voices if our nation persists in its perverse ways in Vietnam. For nine years following 1945 we denied the people of Vietnam the right of independence. "[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. 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. Ken Rudin joins guest host Rebecca Roberts. 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. (2)] 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. CONAN: Walt, thank you. He passed the Civil Rights Act. Instead, we decided to support France in its reconquest of her former colony. 0000001616 00000 n If we love one another God dwelleth in us, and his love is perfected in us. In 1957 when a group of us formed the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, we chose as our motto: To save the soul of America. We were convinced that we could not limit our vision to certain rights for black people, but instead affirmed the conviction that America would never be free or saved from itself unless the descendants of its slaves were loosed completely from the shackles they still wear. Q%F70%iR! What then can I say to the Vietcong or to Castro or to Mao as a faithful minister of this one? So King understood violence. 4. 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. 0000013309 00000 n This I believe to be the privilege and the burden of all of us who deem ourselves bound by allegiances and loyalties which are broader and deeper than nationalism and which go beyond our nations self-defined goals and positions. We're talking with Tavis Smiley. The question is, is it a war of necessity or a war of choice at this point? 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. So, that's all I had to say. Life often leaves us standing bare, naked and dejected with a lost opportunity. Martin Luther King Jr. - Why I Am Opposed to the War in Vietnam In that address, he articulated his reasons for his opposition to the Southeast Asian conflict. It was the speech he labored over the most. 0000009985 00000 n 0000002784 00000 n But when he turns the corner and then says, essentially, that Martin's philosophy wouldn't work in today's world, he goes on to say that Dr. King didn't know al-Qaida, as if to suggest that Martin didn't understand evil, that Martin didn't understand violence, that he himself had not been subjected to it. At the heart of their concerns this query has often loomed large and loud: Why are you speaking about war, Dr. King? Thanks, as always for your time. Opposes Vietnam War, New York Times, 11 November 1965. 0000003996 00000 n He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love. 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. A few other Americans know, of course, the "Mountaintop" speech given the night before he's assassinated in Memphis. The truth of these words is beyond doubt but the mission to which they call us is a most difficult one. 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. We must speak for them and raise the questions they cannot raise. 0000002247 00000 n He gave a famous speech about the fact that he - when stabbed in New York at a book signing, the blade was just a scintilla away from his aorta.