For it occurs to me that what we are submitting them to in Vietnam is not simply the brutalizing process that goes on in any war where armies face each other and seek to destroy. Of course, he's assassinated in Memphis a year to the day later after giving this speech. Shall we say the odds are too great? They watch as we poison their water, as we kill a million acres of their crops. 16, 1967 in New York. 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. 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. We are called to speak for the weak, for the voiceless, for victims of our nation and for those it calls enemy, for no document from human hands can make these humans any less our brothers. So even McNamara eventually comes around to that point. 0000003996 00000 n 2. Well, it was taken in that context, anyway. But two, to the audio, there are only less than 10 minutes of this speech that got covered. Not only that, but then-President Lyndon Johnson disinvited King to the White House. Martin Luther King: Beyond Vietnam and Remaining Awake Through a Great Revolution, 90th Cong., 2d sess., Congressional Record 114 (9 April 1968): 93919397. 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. This speech is not addressed to Hanoi or to the National Liberation Front. Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence . At the heart of their concerns this query has often loomed large and loud: Why are you speaking about war, Dr. King? 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. What liberators? In Martin Luther King Jr.'s Vietnam speech, lines 413-416, he repeats the phrase "this is not just" (161). Martin Luther King, Jr., giving his speech Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence at Riverside Church in NYC, April 4, 1967. Mr. SMILEY: Indeed, he did. The oceans of history are made turbulent by the ever-rising tides of hate. Now let us begin. 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. CONAN: We're talking with Tavis Smiley about his PBS special, "Tavis Smiley Reports MLK: A Call to Conscience." That's what I feel. 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. 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. And that's the issue that King was raising. Freedom's Ring: King's "I Have a Dream" Speech, Remaining Awake Through a Great Revolution, Martin Luther King, Jr. - Political and Social Views, Clergy and Laymen Concerned about Vietnam (CALCAV). When I speak of love I am not speaking of some sentimental and weak response. King Scores Poverty). In Hanoi are the men who led the nation to independence against the Japanese and the French, the men who sought membership in the French commonwealth and were betrayed by the weakness of Paris and the willfulness of the colonial armies. 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. This is TALK OF THE NATION from NPR News in Washington. Mr. SMILEY: And therein lies the rub. I speak as an American to the leaders of my own nation. He passed the Civil Rights Act. We may cry out desperately for time to pause in her passage, but time is deaf to every plea and rushes on. While King was personally opposed to the war, he was concerned that publicly criticizing U.S. foreign policy would damage his relationship with President Lyndon B. Johnson, who had been instrumental in passing civil rights legislation and who had declared in April 1965 that he was willing to negotiate a diplomatic end to the war in Vietnam. I'm Neal Conan. The question is, is it a war of necessity or a war of choice at this point? P: (650) 723-2092 | F: (650) 723-2093 | kinginstitute@stanford.edu| Campus Map. Martin Luther King, Jr. utilizes figurative to emphasize the inhumanity and immorality of the war. Opposes Vietnam War, New York Times, 11 November 1965. 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. 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. This kind of positive revolution of values is our best defense against communism. 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. We must be prepared to match actions with words by seeking out every creative means of protest possible. (2)] The Vietnamese people proclaimed their own independence in 1945 after a combined French and Japanese occupation, and before the Communist revolution in China. 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. All Rights Reserved. Peace and civil rights dont mix, they say. Nevertheless, I am in a different position as the president of the United States. And Walt's with us from Cortez in Colorado. So practically everybody was opposed to him giving this speech. Those pictures turned Dr. King's stomach. Mr. SMILEY: It's a powerful point made by Clayborne Carson at Stanford who is in charge, as you know, Neal, of the King papers. The image of America will never again be the image of revolution, freedom and democracy, but the image of violence and militarism.. 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. I speak as a citizen of the world, for the world as it stands aghast at the path we have taken. 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. HOWARD: How are you doing, Tavis? 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. 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. Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library, Washington, D.C. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Library, San Jose, April 15, 1967 Anti-Vietnam war demonstrations, 1968 Democratic National Convention protests, Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District, Fifth Avenue Vietnam Peace Parade Committee, National Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam, John F. Kennedy's speech to the nation on Civil Rights, Heart of Atlanta Motel, Inc. v. United States, Chicago Freedom Movement/Chicago open housing movement, Green v. County School Board of New Kent County, Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights, Council for United Civil Rights Leadership, Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), "Woke Up This Morning (With My Mind Stayed On Freedom)", List of lynching victims in the United States, Birmingham Civil Rights National Monument, Medgar and Myrlie Evers Home National Monument, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Beyond_Vietnam:_A_Time_to_Break_Silence&oldid=1133369048, Wikipedia articles needing page number citations from January 2023, Articles with unsourced statements from January 2023, Articles with unsourced statements from December 2021, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, This page was last edited on 13 January 2023, at 12:35. So this was a huge, huge speech that got Martin King in more trouble than anything he had ever said or done. We appreciate that. [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. True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar; it is not haphazard and superficial. Have they forgotten that my ministry is in obedience to the one who loved his enemies so fully that he died for them? Now let us rededicate ourselves to the long and bitter but beautifulstruggle for a new world. 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! Procrastination is still the thief of time. Martin Luther King Jr. was a social activist that led the Civil Rights Movement, and other movements until his assassination in 1968. So King understood violence. 0000003454 00000 n Martin Luther King, Jr. believed that peace and economic justice were critical to his fight for human rights. Is it among these voiceless ones? In the 1950s and 1960s, his words led the Civil Rights Movement and helped change society. 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. CONAN: Tavis Smiley, author, journalist, political commentator, host of his talk show on PBS, joins us today from the Sheryl Flowers Studios in Los Angeles. Because, to your point now, one, I want people to go online and read the speech so you can see the text for yourself. 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. Your donation is fully tax-deductible. We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now. Mr. TAVIS SMILEY (Host, "The Tavis Smiley Show"): Neal, always an honor to be on with you. Martin Luther King, who was already beginning to lose some of his influence, nevertheless made a huge challenge to the establishment. [11], King's opposition cost him significant support among white allies, including President Johnson, Billy Graham,[citation needed] union leaders and powerful publishers. He did say he was going to increase troop levels in Afghanistan, so he's kept that promise. 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. And King was prescient on this. They see the children, degraded by our soldiers as they beg for food. Mr. SMILEY: Yeah. Thanks, as always for your time. 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. Where are the roots of the independent Vietnam we claim to be building? Nor is it an attempt to overlook the ambiguity of the total situation and the need for a collective solution to the tragedy of Vietnam. Such thoughts take us beyond Vietnam, but not beyond our calling as sons of the living God. (AFP via Getty Images) "Why are you speaking about the war, Dr. King? CONAN: "MLK: A Call to Conscience" premieres on PBS tomorrow night. A few years ago there was a shining moment in that struggle. Moreover I would encourage all ministers of draft age to give up their ministerial exemptions and seek status as conscientious objectors. 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 ). hide caption. 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. There were experiments, hopes, new beginnings. In this speech, he opposes violence and militarism, particularly the war in Vietnam. 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. [citation needed]. [citation needed]. 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. 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? With that tragic decision we rejected a revolutionary government seeking self-determination, and a government that had been established not by China (for whom the Vietnamese have no great love) but by clearly indigenous forces that included some Communists. BlackPast.org is a 501(c)(3) non-profit and our EIN is 26-1625373. Their questions hit home, and I knew that I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed in the ghettos without having first spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today my own government. Carson and Shepard, 2001. King Leads Chicago Peace Rally, New York Times, 26 March 1967. That's my own personal assessment. The tide in the affairs of men does not remain at the flood; it ebbs. 0000044282 00000 n 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. Perhaps the more difficult but no less necessary task is to speak for those who have been designated as our enemies. War is not the answer. 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. It seemed as if there was a real promise of hope for the poorboth black . 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. 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. And thank you for sharing what had to be a difficult story to tell. So Martin's advisors basically said, if you are intent on giving the speech, at least allow us to craft a speech and to create a setting that will allow you to speak to clergy members and laity so at least before you get to this rally that we know is going to be controversial, we could at least roll this thing out with a different kind of a crowd. Martin Luther King's Speech Against the Vietnam War by David Bromwich May 16, 2008 O ne of the greatest speeches by Martin Luther King, Jr., "A Time to Break Silence," was delivered at Riverside Church, New York City, on April 4, 1967. King Leads Chicago). 0000002874 00000 n You can also join the conversation at our Web site. Every man of humane convictions must decide on the protest that best suits his convictions, but we must all protest. 0000013330 00000 n 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. Kings opposition to the war provoked criticism from members of Congress, the press, and from his civil rights colleagues who argued that expanding his civil rights message to include foreign affairs would harm the black freedom struggle in America. So it was a great turnout. 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. 0000003199 00000 n Smiley spoke with both scholars and friends of King, including Cornel West, Vincent Harding and Susannah Heschel. Then came the buildup in Vietnam and I watched the program broken and eviscerated as if it were some idle political plaything of a society gone mad on war, and I knew that America would never invest the necessary funds or energies in rehabilitation of its poor so long as adventures like Vietnam continued to draw men and skills and money like some demonic destructive suction tube. The situation is one in which we must be ready to turn sharply from our present ways. For nine years we vigorously supported the French in their abortive effort to recolonize Vietnam. [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. Howard's calling us from South Bend. We have destroyed their land and their crops. 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 . And he said these three issues of racism and poverty and militarism are going to destroy this nation. Martin Luther King's Beyond Vietnam Speech is in many ways even more relevant today than in 1967. . King to Weigh Civil Disobedience If War Intensifies, New York Times, 2 April 1967. 0000047501 00000 n If we love one another God dwelleth in us, and his love is perfected in us. They ask how we can speak of free elections when the Saigon press is censored and controlled by the military junta. Finally, as I try to delineate for you and for myself the road that leads from Montgomery to this place I would have offered all that was most valid if I simply said that I must be true to my conviction that I share with all men the calling to be a son of the living God. At the time, civil rights leaders publicly condemned him for it. 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. A true revolution of values will soon look uneasily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth. His house was bombed. They asked if our own nation wasnt using massive doses of violence to solve its problems, to bring about the changes it wanted. One of the things, I hope, Neal, will happen here is that when people get a chance to see the special, they will be moved - I think they will be - to Google or Bing, whatever search engine you use, to go online, because the speech is so readily available, Neal, as you know. Surely we must understand their feelings even if we do not condone their actions. 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. I come to this magnificent house of worship tonight because my conscience leaves me no other choice. 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. 0000003415 00000 n But for those who presently choose but one, I would hope they will finally come to see the moral roots common to both. [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". I would like to see the fervor of the civil-rights movement imbued into the peace movement to instill it with greater strength. 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. 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 . They see the children selling their sisters to our soldiers, soliciting for their mothers. That Vietnam was a mistake. Accuracy and availability may vary. HT0WJ3 O$L Though he avoided condemning the war outright, at the August 1965 annual Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) convention King called for a halt to bombing in North Vietnam, urged that the United Nations be empowered to mediate the conflict, and told the crowd that what is required is a small first step that may establish a new spirit of mutual confidence a step capable of breaking the cycle of mistrust, violence and war (King, 12 August 1965). On this Wikipedia the language links are at the top of the page across from the article title. And about a month after that speech was given, I was wounded. "[23], King also stated in "Beyond Vietnam" that "true compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar it comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring. Let me say this right quick: The comparisons between what King was addressing then about militarism, poverty and racism sound familiar 45 years later. They will be concerned about Guatemala and Peru. [19][20], In a 1952 letter to Coretta Scott, he said: "I imagine you already know that I am much more socialistic in my economic theory than capitalistic"[21] In one speech, he stated that "something is wrong with capitalism" and claimed, "There must be a better distribution of wealth, and maybe America must move toward a democratic socialism. We can no longer afford to worship the god of hate or bow before the altar of retaliation. 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. This has driven many to feel that only Marxism has the revolutionary spirit. 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. 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. Please c, ontact Intellectual Properties Management (IPM), the exclusive licensor of the Estate of Martin Luther King, Jr., Inc. at. We have corrupted their women and children and killed their men. A few years ago there was a shining moment in that struggle. Shall we tell them the struggle is too hard? There is nothing to keep us from molding a recalcitrant status quo with bruised hands until we have fashioned it into a brotherhood. $25.00. The New York Times calls it wasteful and self-defeating. 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. Love is somehow the key that unlocks the door which leads to ultimate reality. Could we blame them for such thoughts? Let us hope that this spirit will become the order of the day. 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.. Attachment 4: Are We Ready to Listen to Dr. King? So we have been repeatedly faced with the cruel irony of watching Negro and white boys on TV screens as they kill and die together for a nation that has been unable to seat them together in the same schools. 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. %PDF-1.3 % Check your local listings. 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. 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. Exactly one year before his assassination, on April 4, 1967, Rev. Before the end of the war we were meeting eighty percent of the French war costs.