I would like to suggest five concrete things that our government should do immediately to begin the long and difficult process of extricating ourselves from this nightmarish conflict: 1. In that address, he articulated his reasons for his opposition to the Southeast Asian conflict. 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. 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. They wander into the hospitals, with at least twenty casualties from American firepower for one Vietcong-inflicted injury. Is it among these voiceless ones? At the time, civil rights leaders publicly condemned him for it. 0000008326 00000 n A few years ago there was a shining moment. Grossfield, Stan. Perhaps a new spirit is rising among us. We are now faced with the fact that tomorrow is today. For the sake of those boys, for the sake of this government, for the sake of hundreds of thousands trembling under our violence, I cannot be silent. When you read the speech, if you replace the word Vietnam, every time it pops up, with the word Iraq, Afghanistan or Pakistan, you will be - it will blow your mind at how King, where he alive today at 81, could really stand up and give that same speech and just replace, again, Vietnam with Iraq and Afghanistan. On April 4, 1967 Martin Luther King Jr. wrote a speech named, "Beyond Vietnam- A Time to Break Silence" addressing the Vietnam War. King's "Beyond Vietnam" speech was delivered at the Riverside Church in New York exactly one year before his assassination. He rarely gave speeches from a text. 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. Twin towers were planned from Afghanistan. We encouraged them with our huge financial and military supplies to continue the war even after they had lost the will. His house was bombed. We may cry out desperately for time to pause in her passage, but time is deaf to every plea and rushes on. He was stabbed at one time. "[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. 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. This has driven many to feel that only Marxism has the revolutionary spirit. 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. At the time, civil rights leaders publicly condemned him for it. 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 . 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 . 0000002605 00000 n Martin Luther King Jr. - Acceptance Speech - NobelPrize.org 0000008347 00000 n 0000002784 00000 n Others, including James Bevel, King's partner and strategist in the Civil Rights Movement, called it King's most important speech. Exactly one year before his assassination, on April 4, 1967, Rev. CONAN: Well, take us back to 1967. We must rapidly begin the shift from a thing-oriented society to a person-oriented society. And we must rejoice as well, for surely this is the first time in our nations history that a significant number of its religious leaders have chosen to move beyond the prophesying of smooth patriotism to the high grounds of a firm dissent based upon the mandates of conscience and the reading of history. They must weep as the bulldozers roar through their areas preparing to destroy the precious trees. 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. So I was increasingly compelled to see the war as an enemy of the poor and to attack it as such. "[14][15], The "Beyond Vietnam" speech reflected King's evolving political advocacy in his later years, which paralleled the teachings of the progressive Highlander Research and Education Center, with which he was affiliated. 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. 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. 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. 800-989-8255, email us talk@npr.org. "[14] I come to this magnificent house of worship tonight because my conscience leaves me no other choice. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, for example, issued a statement against merging the civil rights and peace movements. April 30, 1967: "Why I Am Opposed to the War in Vietnam" Speech When the Rev. "The press is being stacked against me", King said,[13] Beyond Vietnam2 in that . "[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 they languish under our bombs and consider us not their fellow Vietnamese the real enemy. "This was a huge, huge speech," he continues, "that got Martin King in more trouble than anything he had ever seen or done. 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. CONAN: Walt, thank you. 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. We must speak with all the humility that is appropriate to our limited vision, but we must speak. 4 Powerful Martin Luther King, Jr. Speeches That Aren't 'I Have A Dream' 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. April 4, 1967: Martin Luther King Jr. Delivers "Beyond Vietnam" Speech Let us hope that this spirit will become the order of the day. BRC-NEWS: Black Radical Congress International News/Alerts/Announcements , Martin Luther King, Jr., delivering speech. 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). [28], A portion of this speech is used in the track "Wisdom, Justice, and Love" by Linkin Park, from their 2010 album A Thousand Suns. Shall we say the odds are too great? They move sadly and apathetically as we herd them off the land of their fathers into concentration camps where minimal social needs are rarely met. It seemed as if there was a real promise of hope for the poorboth black . Five years ago he said, Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.. 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. He is best known for helping achieve civil equality for African Americans, but these speeches--selected because they were each presented at a turning point in the . 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. 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. 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. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. BlackPast.org is a 501(c)(3) non-profit and our EIN is 26-1625373. I come to this platform tonight to make a passionate plea to my beloved nation. 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. What of the National Liberation Front that strangely anonymous group we call VC or Communists? 1967 speech delivered by Martin Luther King Jr. Accuracy and availability may vary. If we love one another God dwelleth in us, and his love is perfected in us. 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. Do you find this information helpful? After the French were defeated it looked as if independence and land reform would come again through the Geneva agreements. In "People and Peace, not Profits and War," Shirley Chisholm repeats the words "two more years" (42). 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. When we ask why they do not leap to negotiate, these things must be remembered. What then can I say to the Vietcong or to Castro or to Mao as a faithful minister of this one? The Institute cannot give permission to use or reproduce any of the writings, statements, or images of Martin Luther King, Jr. And I can't tell young black men, who are being denied right here in the streets of America, that they should offer themselves up and to sign themselves up to go - to do harm to people around the world who they do not know. Surely we must see that the men we supported pressed them to their violence. I think of them too because it is clear to me that there will be no meaningful solution there until some attempt is made to know them and hear their broken cries. 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. 0000011739 00000 n The people who sat in darkness have seen a great light. We in the West must support these revolutions. PDF Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence ~ MLK Speech 1967 - CRM Vet So all that we have is less than 10 minutes of video of the speech. 0000006536 00000 n Before the end of the war we were meeting eighty percent of the French war costs. 0000013330 00000 n How can they trust us when now we charge them with violence after the murderous reign of Diem and charge them with violence while we pour every new weapon of death into their land? They watch as we poison their water, as we kill a million acres of their crops. Dr. King linked his anti-war and civil rights work in speeches throughout the country, where he described the three problems he saw plaguing the nation: racism, poverty, and the war in Vietnam. 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. Mr. SMILEY: That's right. And the last poll taken in his life by Harris, the Harris Poll, Neal, found that nearly three quarters of the American people, nearly three quarters, had turned against Martin on this issue, and 55 percent of his own people, black folk, had turned against him. n the one hand we are called to play the good Samaritan on lifes roadside; but that will be only an initial act. On April 15, 1967, King participated and spoke at an anti-war march from Manhattan's Central Park to the United Nations. 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. HdTn0+=3hRnm)zK#-t\|Ha)S I have not urged a mechanical fusion of the civil rights and peace movements. Martin Luther King Beyond Vietnam Speech Full Text and Video Email us: talk@npr.org. 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." Nearly five years after Kings assassination, American troops withdrew from Vietnam and a peace treaty declared South and North Vietnam independent of each other. 0000003996 00000 n The Institute cannot give permission to use or reproduce any of the writings, statements, or images of Martin Luther King, Jr. But there was a great turnout for the speech. They brought in extra chairs. 0000004855 00000 n Martin Luther King, Jr. (January 15, 1929 - April 4, 1968) Dr. King in a March 25, 1967 antiwar march in Chicago. The truth of these words is beyond doubt but the mission to which they call us is a most difficult one. At the heart of their concerns this query has often loomed large and loud: Why are you speaking about war, Dr. King? Tavis Smiley joins us today from the Sheryl Flowers Studios in Los Angeles. Moreover I would encourage all ministers of draft age to give up their ministerial exemptions and seek status as conscientious objectors. We must speak for them and raise the questions they cannot raise. Copyright 2010 NPR. Mr. SMILEY: Yeah. And thirdly, I think the main point here in this MLK "Beyond Vietnam" speech is that there is another way. Mr. SMILEY: Yeah. 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. 16, 1967 in New York. dH(*b(jGB@'k1zTR~{dA9|\b. Will our message be that the forces of American life militate against their arrival as full men, and we send our deepest regrets? or 404 526-8968. Indeed, their questions suggest that they do not know the world in which they live. 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 . 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. But this is, again, precisely what King was concerned about, putting the lives of everyday Americans on the line in a fight that was not winnable and a war that was unjust. 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. This need to maintain social stability for our investments accounts for the counter-revolutionary action of American forces in Guatemala. [citation needed], One of the eight "sound cells" in @Large, Ai Weiwei's 201415 exhibit at Alcatraz, features King's voice giving the "Beyond Vietnam" speech. On 4 April 1967 Martin Luther King, Jr., delivered his seminal speech at Riverside Church condemning the Vietnam War. 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. Robert B. Semple, Jr., Dr. Well, it was taken in that context, anyway. What must they be thinking when they know that we are aware of their control of major sections of Vietnam and yet we appear ready to allow national elections in which this highly organized political parallel government will have no part? 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. 0000002004 00000 n After he gives it, 168 major newspapers the next day denounce him. Martin Luther King, Jr. - Challenges of the final years | Britannica So 60 year(ph) is really, really a hot year here around this particular issue. We must stop now. 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. 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. You can also join the conversation at our Web site. W. E. B. Dr. King And Malcolm X Teaching Resources | TPT And King was prescient on this. Martin Luther King, Jr., giving his speech Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence at Riverside Church in NYC, April 4, 1967. What do they think of our condoning the violence which led to their own taking up of arms? 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]. I must cry out when I see war escalated at any point (Opposes Vietnam War). Due to the Vietnam War is that plenty of individuals, both Americans and Vietnamese were killed. We must continue to raise our voices if our nation persists in its perverse ways in Vietnam. Martin Luther King Jr. Assassination - HISTORY 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 it was on that occasion that he - when he saw those pictures, said, I have to speak out about this. So far we may have killed a million of them mostly children. And that's the issue that King was raising. The MLK Speech We Need Today Is Not the One We Remember Most [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. 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. 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). For nine years following 1945 we denied the people of Vietnam the right of independence. Carson and Shepard, 2001. 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. I could not be silent in the face of such cruel manipulation of the poor. CONAN: Indeed, it was Oslo. 0000009964 00000 n But the entire speech, of course, thankfully, was recorded on audio. The United States got involved in the Vietnam War because they wanted to stop the spread of communism. King Scores Poverty). Some 250,000 people gathered at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., for the March on Washington. I speak as an American to the leaders of my own nation. At the U.N. King also brought up issues of civil rights and the draft. Hanoi remembers how our leaders refused to tell us the truth about the earlier North Vietnamese overtures for peace, how the president claimed that none existed when they had clearly been made. 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. Summary Of Martin Luther King Jr Vietnam Speech | ipl.org To me the relationship of this ministry to the making of peace is so obvious that I sometimes marvel at those who ask me why I am speaking against the war. While they both may have justifiable reason to be suspicious of the good faith of the United States, life and history give eloquent testimony to the fact that conflicts are never resolved without trustful give and take on both sides. With this powerful commitment we shall boldly challenge the status quo and unjust mores and thereby speed the day when every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall be made straight and the rough places plain.. "[9], King opposed the Vietnam War because it took money and resources that could have been spent on social welfare at home. But they didn't stay for the speech in its entirety. Where are the roots of the independent Vietnam we claim to be building? He knows the bombing and shelling and mining we are doing are part of traditional pre-invasion strategy. We must be prepared to match actions with words by seeking out every creative means of protest possible. 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. Therefore, communism is a judgment against our failure to make democracy real and follow through on the revolutions we initiated. 0000003503 00000 n 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. We will be marching for these and a dozen other names and attending rallies without end unless there is a significant and profound change in American life and policy. 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. 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. Mr. SMILEY: Neal, thank you for the opportunity. Surely we must understand their feelings even if we do not condone their actions. 0000001616 00000 n Read The Full Text And Listen To Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "Beyond Vietnam" Speech. Martin Luther King Jr. on the Vietnam War "The greatest irony and tragedy of all is that our nation, which initiated so much of the revolutionary spirit of the modern world, is now cast in the. The great initiative in this war is ours. All rights reserved. Of course, again, that philosophy, when the papers got a hold of him the next day, that strategy didn't work so well. 0000047501 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. Martin Luther King Jr. held his acceptance speech in the auditorium of the University of Oslo on 10 December 1964. "It basically ruins their relationship," says Smiley. MLK: Beyond Vietnam - A Time to Break Silence - YouTube
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