martin luther king jr vietnam war speech transcript

Before long they must know that their government has sent them into a struggle among Vietnamese, and the more sophisticated surely realize that we are on the side of the wealthy and the secure while we create hell for the poor. And when I hear them, though I often understand the source of their concern, I am nevertheless greatly saddened, for such questions mean that the inquirers have not really known me, my commitment or my calling. Robert B. Semple, Jr., Dr. 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]. The MLK Speech We Need Today Is Not the One We Remember Most The great initiative in this war is ours. 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. If we do not stop our war against the people of Vietnam immediately the world will be left with no other alternative than to see this as some horribly clumsy and deadly game we have decided to play. 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. 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? AFP/AFP/Getty Images 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. The United States got involved in the Vietnam War because they wanted to stop the spread of communism. Martin Luther King Jr. was deeply troubled by the Vietnam War for years, but the "Beyond Vietnam" speech was his first major policy statement on the issue. 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. 0000003996 00000 n King Leads Chicago Peace Rally, New York Times, 26 March 1967. Dr. King And Malcolm X Teaching Resources | TPT 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. I am pleased to say that this is the path now being chosen by more than seventy students at my own alma mater, Morehouse College, and I recommend it to all who find the American course in Vietnam a dishonorable and unjust one. At the heart of their concerns this query has often loomed large and loud: Why are you speaking about war, Dr. King? This is Howard, which you know me. (Scott) King,My Life with Martin Luther King, Jr., 1969. 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. 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. JwNt YHiA:{p . It will become clear that our minimal expectation is to occupy it as an American colony and men will not refrain from thinking that our maximum hope is to goad China into a war so that we may bomb her nuclear installations. CONAN: We (unintelligible) to see it. And King gives a great speech out of that hospital called "If I Had Sneezed." 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. And when you see the piece on "Lens" tonight that's the part of the speech that set off so many of those who are in King's inner circle, so many scholars who have written about King. So he was no longer on that particular list. He would no longer be respected. And that's the issue that King was raising. Those pictures turned Dr. King's stomach. It tells why American helicopters are being used against guerrillas in Colombia and why American napalm and green beret forces have already been active against rebels in Peru. I Have a Dream, speech by Martin Luther King, Jr., that was delivered on August 28, 1963, during the March on Washington. A true revolution of values will soon cause us to question the fairness and justice of many of our past and present policies. Howard's calling us from South Bend. 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. I come to this platform tonight to make a passionate plea to my beloved nation. A genuine revolution of values means in the final analysis that our loyalties must become ecumenical rather than sectional. Mr. TAVIS SMILEY (Host, "The Tavis Smiley Show"): Neal, always an honor to be on with you. "[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. 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. But it ends up being the most controversial speech. So all that we have is less than 10 minutes of video of the speech. Due to the Vietnam War is that plenty of individuals, both Americans and Vietnamese were killed. 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. 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. Declare a unilateral cease-fire in the hope that such action will create the atmosphere for negotiation. "[22] "[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. But certainly one of the greatest orators of our time. Martin Luther King, Jr. utilizes figurative to emphasize the inhumanity and immorality of the war. 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. 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? There were a lot of people inside. And about a month after that speech was given, I was wounded. 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. Paul A. Schuette, King Preaches on Non-Violence at Police-Guarded Howard Hall, Washington Post, 3 March 1965. 0000002516 00000 n 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. 0000002605 00000 n The image of America will never again be the image of revolution, freedom and democracy, but the image of violence and militarism.. Moreover when the issues at hand seem as perplexed as they often do in the case of this dreadful conflict we are always on the verge of being mesmerized by uncertainty; but we must move on. We have destroyed their two most cherished institutions: the family and the village. 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. We're talking with Tavis Smiley. 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. (1997). 4. Martin Luther King, Jr. (January 15, 1929 - April 4, 1968) And we are spending money for a war abroad that ought to be spent for the war on poverty here at home. They see the children, degraded by our soldiers as they beg for food. 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. And King had preached at this church any number of times before, of course. Love is somehow the key that unlocks the door which leads to ultimate reality. Now there is little left to build onsave bitterness. These too are our brothers. And he starts out in the opening line at Riverside Church by saying: I am here tonight because my conscience leaves me no other choice. Somehow this madness must cease. Can I threaten them with death or must I not share with them my life? And thirdly, I think the main point here in this MLK "Beyond Vietnam" speech is that there is another way. Beyond Vietnam: The MLK speech that caused an uproar - USA TODAY It was, to your earlier point, the most controversial speech he ever gave. 0000047501 00000 n That's at npr.org, click on TALK OF THE NATION. CONAN: And one thing that I was unaware of was the timing of the speech in that he had wanted to say something along these lines. Instead, we decided to support France in its reconquest of her former colony. Of course, he's assassinated in Memphis a year to the day later after giving this speech. The True Martin Luther King, Jr. New York: Free Press. 0000002247 00000 n 0000009964 00000 n "[9], King opposed the Vietnam War because it took money and resources that could have been spent on social welfare at home. 0000005717 00000 n 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. Mr. SMILEY: We - let me just tell you this. 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. 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. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.: "Beyond Vietnam" - Zinn Education Project CONAN: Oh, the audio is terrible, though. Sermons and speeches of Martin Luther King Jr. "Vincent Harding dies at 82; historian wrote controversial King speech", "Vincent Harding, author of Martin Luther King Jr.'s antiwar speech, dies", "The Rev. He passed the Voting Rights Act. 50 Years Ago: Dr. King's Anti-War Sermon at Riverside Church 800-989-8255, email us talk@npr.org. And that's just the Times and the Post. Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Vietnam War Speech Analysis 0000001739 00000 n Shall we say the odds are too great? 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. Copyright 2010 NPR. 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. We must rapidly begin the shift from a thing-oriented society to a person-oriented society. A few years ago there was a shining moment in that. This is TALK OF THE NATION from NPR News in Washington. The Story Of King's 'Beyond Vietnam' Speech : NPR In a way we were agreeing with Langston Hughes, that black bard of Harlem, who had written earlier: O, yes, I say it plain, America never was America to me, And yet I swear this oath America will be! or 404 526-8968. What do they think of our condoning the violence which led to their own taking up of arms? Exactly one year before his assassination, on April 4, 1967, Rev. 0000007161 00000 n WALT (Caller): Yes. 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. 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.. [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. Five years ago he said, Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.. Martin Luther King, Jr. - Challenges of the final years | Britannica 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. The people who sat in darkness have seen a great light. We in the West must support these revolutions. Surely we must see that the men we supported pressed them to their violence. 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. 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. Is it among these voiceless ones? 0000001645 00000 n So I was increasingly compelled to see the war as an enemy of the poor and to attack it as such. When the Rev. "[14] So even McNamara eventually comes around to that point. The speech and its echoes for Afghanistan and Iraq are the subject of "Tavis Smiley Reports MLK: A Call to Conscience.". He was one of the most important and influential Civil Rights leaders in the 1950s and 1960s. I come to this magnificent house of worship tonight because my conscience leaves me no other choice. 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. 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. For the peasants this new government meant real land reform, one of the most important needs in their lives. Will our message be that the forces of American life militate against their arrival as full men, and we send our deepest regrets? Mr. SMILEY: Yeah. We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now. [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. On April 15, 1967, King participated and spoke at an anti-war march from Manhattan's Central Park to the United Nations. 0000006536 00000 n ", After King delivered the speech, Smiley reports, "168 major newspapers the next day denounced him." 0000009985 00000 n Have they forgotten that my ministry is in obedience to the one who loved his enemies so fully that he died for them? 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 . Carson and Holloran, 1998. Every man of humane convictions must decide on the protest that best suits his convictions, but we must all protest. We encouraged them with our huge financial and military supplies to continue the war even after they had lost the will. The Washington Post says he has done a discredit to himself, to his people, to his country. That's what set so many of them off. Beyond Vietnam A Time To Break Silence Rhetorical Precis 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? All the while the people read our leaflets and received regular promises of peace and democracy and land reform. 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. 0000002784 00000 n Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence - Wikipedia We must move past indecision to action. 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. Martin Luther King, Jr., gave a speech that may have helped put a target on . So, too, with Hanoi. 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. Martin Luther King Jr.'s "Beyond Vietnam" was a powerful and angry speech that raged against the war. 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. The authoritative record of NPRs programming is the audio record. 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 . 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. PDF A TIME TO BREAK THE SILENCE - nps.gov 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. The tide in the affairs of men does not remain at the flood; it ebbs. This kind of positive revolution of values is our best defense against communism. 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. Dr. 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. Estate of Martin Luther King, Jr., Inc. v. CBS, Inc. Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), African American founding fathers of the United States, Statue of Martin Luther King Jr. (Pueblo, Colorado), Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial, San Francisco. 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? On April 4, 1967 Martin Luther King Jr. wrote a speech named, "Beyond Vietnam- A Time to Break Silence" addressing the Vietnam War. 159. 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. NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. Nevertheless, I am in a different position as the president of the United States. This call for a world-wide fellowship that lifts neighborly concern beyond ones tribe, race, class and nation is in reality a call for an all-embracing and unconditional love for all men. 0000012562 00000 n He turned that into a great speech when he got out of the hospital. Not only that, but then-President Lyndon Johnson disinvited King to the White House. Therefore the first hope in our inventory must be the hope that love is going to have the last word.. But for those who presently choose but one, I would hope they will finally come to see the moral roots common to both. 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. CONAN: Indeed, it was Oslo. But they asked and rightly so what about Vietnam? America, the richest and most powerful nation in the world, can well lead the way in this revolution of values. The oceans of history are made turbulent by the ever-rising tides of hate. 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. 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. 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. I speak as a citizen of the world, for the world as it stands aghast at the path we have taken. 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. W. E. B. And King was prescient on this. 20072023 Blackpast.org. You can also join the conversation at our Web site. But two, to the audio, there are only less than 10 minutes of this speech that got covered. We must stop now. Attachment 2: Definitions Attachment 3: King Opposed Vietnam War; We Must Oppose US War in Iraq. Mr. SMILEY: Neal, thank you for the opportunity. What then can I say to the Vietcong or to Castro or to Mao as a faithful minister of this one? I am speaking of that force which all of the great religions have seen as the supreme unifying principle of life. Screenshots are considered by the King Estate a violation of this notice. 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. These are revolutionary times. And Walt's with us from Cortez in Colorado. 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. 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. 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 ). (1947) Moranda Smith Addresses The Congress Of Industrial Organizations Annual Convention, Boston, (1974) Congresswoman Barbara Jordans Statement: The Richard Nixon Impeachment Hearings, African American History: Research Guides & Websites, Global African History: Research Guides & Websites, African American Scientists and Technicians of the Manhattan Project, Envoys, Diplomatic Ministers, & Ambassadors, http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/45a/058.html, Foundation, Organization, and Corporate Supporters. 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? 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. 0000002694 00000 n ml.K-x1x*tcSO p[ endstream endobj 62 0 obj 720 endobj 63 0 obj << /Filter /FlateDecode /Length 62 0 R >> stream 4 Powerful Martin Luther King, Jr. Speeches That Aren't 'I Have A Dream' And so the question was, Martin, why would you antagonize the president who has been our friend? hide caption. At the time, civil rights leaders publicly condemned him for it. 800-989-8255. 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. Tavis Smiley joins us today from the Sheryl Flowers Studios in Los Angeles. James L. Bevel dies at 72; civil rights activist and top lieutenant to King", "Martin Luther King Jr. made our nation uncomfortable", "The Uncompromising Anti-Capitalism of Martin Luther King Jr", "Why Martin Luther King Didn't Run for President", "Thich Nhat Hanh, Zen Master and Political Reformer, Dies at 95", "The Story Of King's 'Beyond Vietnam' Speech", "Dragons, legos, and solitary: Ai Weiwei's transformative Alcatraz exhibition", Full transcript of the speech from Commondreams.org.