martin luther king jr vietnam war speech transcript

Some civil rights leaders urged King not to speak out on the Vietnam War, but he said he could not separate issues of economic injustice, racism, war, and militarism. Arent you hurting the cause of your people, they ask? 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. Such thoughts take us beyond Vietnam, but not beyond our calling as sons of the living God. So 60 year(ph) is really, really a hot year here around this particular issue. 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. (1997). Stanford University, Stanford, California 94305. 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. All Rights Reserved. The problem was that practically everyone in his inner circle - not all, there was James Bevel and a couple of others - but practically everyone in his inner circle advised him strongly not to give this speech. 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. A few years ago there was a shining moment in that struggle. We may cry out desperately for time to pause in her passage, but time is deaf to every plea and rushes on. There were experiments, hopes, new beginnings. But two, to the audio, there are only less than 10 minutes of this speech that got covered. They see the children selling their sisters to our soldiers, soliciting for their mothers. They will be concerned about Guatemala and Peru. The True Martin Luther King, Jr. New York: Free Press. The peasants watched as all this was presided over by U.S. influence and then by increasing numbers of U.S. troops who came to help quell the insurgency that Diems methods had aroused. Copy of full text of the "Beyond Vietnam" speech. The major speech at Riverside Church in New York City, followed several interviews[2] and several other public speeches in which King came out against the Vietnam War and the policies that created it. PDF Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence ~ MLK Speech 1967 - CRM Vet 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. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s 1967 speech in New York. This has driven many to feel that only Marxism has the revolutionary spirit. You can also join the conversation at our Web site. They were led by Ho Chi Minh. These are days which demand wise restraint and calm reasonableness. 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. Opposes Vietnam War, New York Times, 11 November 1965. What do they think of our condoning the violence which led to their own taking up of arms? Indeed, you play parts of President Obama's speech to the Nobel Committee there in Stockholm where he received the award. 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." 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? Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence - Wikipedia 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. Email us: talk@npr.org. [29], Excerpts from this speech are used in the songs "Together" and "Spirit" by Nordic Giants. [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. 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. I speak as an American to the leaders of my own nation. Is it among these voiceless ones? The world now demands a maturity of America that we may not be able to achieve. 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. This is the calling of the sons of God, and our brothers wait eagerly for our response. At the time, civil rights leaders publicly condemned him for it. Martin Luther King, Jr. (January 15, 1929 - April 4, 1968) Less than two weeks after leading his first Vietnam demonstration, on 4 April 1967, King made his best known and most comprehensive statement against the war. Before he was assassinated at age 39, the 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. This is the message of the great Buddhist leaders of Vietnam. And that's just the Times and the Post. Martin Luther King, Jr., gave a speech that may have helped put a target on . 0000044282 00000 n "[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. 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. He summed up this aspect by saying, "A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death. [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. ml.K-x1x*tcSO p[ endstream endobj 62 0 obj 720 endobj 63 0 obj << /Filter /FlateDecode /Length 62 0 R >> stream The tide in the affairs of men does not remain at the flood; it ebbs. All the while the people read our leaflets and received regular promises of peace and democracy and land reform. And King gives a great speech out of that hospital called "If I Had Sneezed." 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. This kind of positive revolution of values is our best defense against communism. Your donation is fully tax-deductible. 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. People And Peace Not Profits And War Rhetorical Devices That's at npr.org, click on TALK OF THE NATION. 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. 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. 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. PBS talk show. The film is the second episode of Tavis Smiley Reports. Every nation must now develop an overriding loyalty to mankind as a whole in order to preserve the best in their individual societies. [6] At the urging of people such as SCLC's former Director of Direct Action and now the head of the Spring Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam, James Bevel, and inspired by the outspokenness of Muhammad Ali,[7] King eventually agreed to publicly oppose the war as opposition was growing among the American public. And King was prescient on this. They see the children, degraded by our soldiers as they beg for food. Mr. SMILEY: And therein lies the rub. 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. 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. Martin Luther King, who was already beginning to lose some of his influence, nevertheless made a huge challenge to the establishment. or 404 526-8968. Martin Luther King Jr.'s "Beyond Vietnam" was a powerful and angry speech that raged against the war. 0000005696 00000 n Instead, we decided to support France in its reconquest of her former colony. 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. If we love one another God dwelleth in us, and his love is perfected in us. Mr. SMILEY: Indeed, he did. "[22] Let me say this right quick: The comparisons between what King was addressing then about militarism, poverty and racism sound familiar 45 years later. But certainly one of the greatest orators of our time. 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. Martin Luther King, Jr.,'s Searing Antiwar Speech, Fifty Years Later So practically everybody was opposed to him giving this speech. 0000003199 00000 n It's a powerful refrain, Neal, about what would've happened in his life, what he would've missed if he had sneezed at that very moment. *];\n~~/iQ|h Q "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. MLK: Beyond Vietnam - A Time to Break Silence - YouTube 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. April 30, 1967: "Why I Am Opposed to the War in Vietnam" Speech The Riverside Church donated largely with Rockefeller money. Can I threaten them with death or must I not share with them my life? $25.00. Mr. TAVIS SMILEY (Host, "The Tavis Smiley Show"): Neal, always an honor to be on with you. April 4, 1967: Martin Luther King Jr. Delivers "Beyond Vietnam" Speech 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. A true revolution of values will soon look uneasily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth. CONAN: Well, take us back to 1967. 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. So it was a great turnout. I have tried to offer them my deepest compassion while maintaining my conviction that social change comes most meaningfully through nonviolent action. Mr. SMILEY: Neal, thank you for the opportunity. We are now faced with the fact that tomorrow is today. 20072023 Blackpast.org. They wander into the hospitals, with at least twenty casualties from American firepower for one Vietcong-inflicted injury. In this speech, he opposes violence and militarism, particularly the war in Vietnam. 0000004855 00000 n We have cooperated in the crushing of the nations only non-Communist revolutionary political force the unified Buddhist church. And Tavis, nice to have you back in the program. 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 <> /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 Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Vietnam War Speech Analysis (1967) Martin Luther King, Jr., "Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence" 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. Our only hope today lies in our ability to recapture the revolutionary spirit and go out into a sometimes hostile world declaring eternal hostility to poverty, racism, and militarism. 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? King's "Beyond Vietnam" speech was delivered at the Riverside Church in New York exactly one year before his assassination. But it ends up being the most controversial speech. I speak for the poor of America who are paying the double price of smashed hopes at home and death and corruption in Vietnam. 16, 1967 in New York. [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. And it was on that occasion that he - when he saw those pictures, said, I have to speak out about this. These too are our brothers. A few years ago there was a shining moment in that. between the war in Vietnam and the struggle I, and others, have been waging in America. King spoke strongly against the U.S.'s role in the war, arguing that the U.S. was in Vietnam "to occupy it as an American colony" and calling the U.S. government "the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today. 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? 0000046786 00000 n His speech appears below. On April 15, 1967, King participated and spoke at an anti-war march from Manhattan's Central Park to the United Nations. We have destroyed their two most cherished institutions: the family and the village. %PDF-1.3 % 0000013330 00000 n We appreciate that. Twin towers were planned from Afghanistan. "The press is being stacked against me", King said,[13] But for those who presently choose but one, I would hope they will finally come to see the moral roots common to both. dH(*b(jGB@'k1zTR~{dA9|\b. Du Bois to Coretta Scott King: The Untold History of the Movement to Ban the Bomb. Please c, ontact Intellectual Properties Management (IPM), the exclusive licensor of the Estate of Martin Luther King, Jr., Inc. at. Thanks, as always for your time. Shall we say the odds are too great? So they go primarily women and children and the aged. Martin Luther King April 4, 1967 Riverside Church, New York City . King Leads Chicago). His house was bombed. After he gives it, 168 major newspapers the next day denounce him. 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. The moving finger writes, and having writ moves on We still have a choice today; nonviolent coexistence or violent co-annihilation. We must continue to raise our voices if our nation persists in its perverse ways in Vietnam. A true revolution of values will soon cause us to question the fairness and justice of many of our past and present policies. We're talking with Tavis Smiley. 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. 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. 0000001739 00000 n 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. Robert B. Semple, Jr., Dr. Dr. Martin Luther King's 'Beyond Vietnam' Speech - HistoryNet "This was a huge, huge speech," he continues, "that got Martin King in more trouble than anything he had ever seen or done. Martin Luther King Jr. on the Vietnam War - The Atlantic King to Weigh Civil Disobedience If War Intensifies, New York Times, 2 April 1967. 0000005717 00000 n I am speaking of that force which all of the great religions have seen as the supreme unifying principle of life. History is cluttered with the wreckage of nations and individuals that pursued this self-defeating path of hate. But Carson makes a powerful point in the special that you just identified, about whether or not Martin King himself would be welcome in some of these mega-churches, at certain political gatherings. Cypress Hall D, 466 Via Ortega, Stanford, CA 94305-4146 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. The authoritative record of NPRs programming is the audio record. Beyond Vietnam A Time To Break Silence Rhetorical Precis Speeches, writings, movements, and protests, Opposition to United States involvement in the Vietnam War, Spring Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam. But LBJ disinvites him to the White House. So this was a huge, huge speech that got Martin King in more trouble than anything he had ever said or done. 0000023610 00000 n "Beyond Vietnam" - The Martin Luther King, Jr., Research and Education I could not be silent in the face of such cruel manipulation of the poor. Now let us rededicate ourselves to the long and bitter but beautifulstruggle for a new world. But instead there came the United States, determined that Ho should not unify the temporarily divided nation, and the peasants watched again as we supported one of the most vicious modern dictators our chosen man, Premier Diem. [26], The same year, King nominated Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh for the Nobel Peace Prize, but the prize was not awarded to anyone that year. So I was increasingly compelled to see the war as an enemy of the poor and to attack it as such. Hb```f``; 6Pco;{Q. 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And they are surely right to wonder what kind of new government we plan to help form without them the only party in real touch with the peasants. 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. 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. 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. Others, including James Bevel, King's partner and strategist in the Civil Rights Movement, called it King's most important speech. Beyond the calling of race or nation or creed is this vocation of sonship and brotherhood, and because I believe that the Father is deeply concerned especially for his suffering and helpless and outcast children, I come tonight to speak for them. It was written by activist and historian Vincent Harding. We must find new ways to speak for peace in Vietnam and justice throughout the developing world a world that borders on our doors. 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. This speech was enormously controversial. One of his great advisers and great admirers, Stanley Levison, who was always with Dr. King in his corner, was against Martin giving this speech. 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. For nine years we vigorously supported the French in their abortive effort to recolonize Vietnam. 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. 4. 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. 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. Check your local listings. 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. 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. Moreover I would encourage all ministers of draft age to give up their ministerial exemptions and seek status as conscientious objectors. At the heart of their concerns this query has often loomed large and loud: Why are you speaking about war, Dr. King? Love is somehow the key that unlocks the door which leads to ultimate reality. Thank you. Before the end of the war we were meeting eighty percent of the French war costs. 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. 0000003454 00000 n 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. In so many words, powerful interests told him: "Mind your own business.". A Comparative Study of Martin Luther King Jr & Malcolm X. by. War is not the answer. Five years ago he said, Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.. 0000002516 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. 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. ) fuG {*pZ//e,QTx)%TuS%@^2j/?Nf7nx!]OvqJG=_oD3?VUMs+tM95X )G~1b'g])!`]:|OwHh-J6ZHg{Z9N3b!\#9"zhT\]sp2WtTal =YvkO8yu 6^,n,v$+u$|^1wUF}GGc=p!e#F\]xx6l~NTYSmc /ut^*WTPO Cp =-FQW.]y#F6NsQ2Qzqz=|v94+JC?w4,|yi4T0eIaaeD2-Y1 Because, to your point now, one, I want people to go online and read the speech so you can see the text for yourself.