martin luther king jr vietnam war speech transcript

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. 0000012562 00000 n 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 . A true revolution of values will soon look uneasily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth. It seemed as if there was a real promise of hope for the poorboth black . And about a month after that speech was given, I was wounded. 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 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. 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? (AFP via Getty Images) "Why are you speaking about the war, Dr. King? JwNt YHiA:{p . Martin Luther King April 4, 1967 Riverside Church, New York City . Before he was assassinated at age 39, the Rev. All the while the people read our leaflets and received regular promises of peace and democracy and land reform. The Vietnamese people proclaimed their own independence in 1945 after a combined French and Japanese occupation, and before the Communist revolution in China. I have tried to offer them my deepest compassion while maintaining my conviction that social change comes most meaningfully through nonviolent action. Now there is little left to build onsave bitterness. 0000002516 00000 n 0000008347 00000 n 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. And we are spending money for a war abroad that ought to be spent for the war on poverty here at home. On April 15, 1967, King participated and spoke at an anti-war march from Manhattan's Central Park to the United Nations. The choice is ours, and though we might prefer it otherwise we must choose in this crucial moment of human history. For the peasants this new government meant real land reform, one of the most important needs in their lives. n the one hand we are called to play the good Samaritan on lifes roadside; but that will be only an initial act. Undeterred, King, Spock, and Harry Belafonte led 10,000 demonstrators on an anti-war march to the United Nations on 15 April 1967. 0000040748 00000 n I guess the question now is whether or not Afghanistan is a war of necessity or a war of choice. [1][5], King was long opposed to American involvement in the Vietnam War, but at first avoided the topic in public speeches in order to avoid the interference with civil rights goals that criticism of President Johnson's policies might have created. He was stabbed at one time. 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. ", After King delivered the speech, Smiley reports, "168 major newspapers the next day denounced him." 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. 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. 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. 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. [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. I come to this platform tonight to make a passionate plea to my beloved nation. 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. 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. 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. 0000008326 00000 n If we continue, there will be no doubt in my mind and in the mind of the world that we have no honorable intentions in Vietnam. Could we blame them for such thoughts? Mr. SMILEY: Neal, thank you for the opportunity. 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! (Unintelligible) on this program about, you know, the chances he took and even, you know, speaking truth to power to LBJ helped him so much in civil rights. End all bombing in North and South Vietnam. I speak for those whose land is being laid waste, whose homes are being destroyed, whose culture is being subverted. 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. Ken Rudin joins guest host Rebecca Roberts. 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. My third reason moves to an even deeper level of awareness, for it grows out of my experience in the ghettoes of the North over the last three years especially the last three summers. 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. 2/QB(yQVz^*oU.FW Tavis Smiley joins us today from the Sheryl Flowers Studios in Los Angeles. 0000002337 00000 n Of course, again, that philosophy, when the papers got a hold of him the next day, that strategy didn't work so well. Let's get Howard(ph) on the line. He criticized the Vietnam War and praised Muhammad Ali for being a conscientious objector. 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. So you got a Nobel laureate named King, a war president with a Nobel Prize named Obama, for all that we have done over the last two years to wed King and Obama together on T- shirts and everywhere else, were King alive today at 81, he and Obama would have a tension point, Neal, on this issue. There were experiments, hopes, new beginnings. 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. Afghanistan, not so much. And there was a 18-year-old black Marine that picked me up since I couldn't walk, got me away from bombs and saved my life. President Obama, this is one campaign promise that he has kept. 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. "[14] Mr. SMILEY: That's right. We are at the moment when our lives must be placed on the line if our nation is to survive its own folly. Fifty years ago in 1967, Martin Luther King, Jr.. The United States got involved in the Vietnam War because they wanted to stop the spread of communism. We may cry out desperately for time to pause in her passage, but time is deaf to every plea and rushes on. Excuse me. 0000002247 00000 n "[22] Therefore, communism is a judgment against our failure to make democracy real and follow through on the revolutions we initiated. Will our message be that the forces of American life militate against their arrival as full men, and we send our deepest regrets? 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. 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? 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. Martin Luther King, Jr. utilizes figurative to emphasize the inhumanity and immorality of the war. 0000007161 00000 n 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. But LBJ disinvites him to the White House. Beyond Vietnam2 in that . 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. In the 1950s and 1960s, his words led the Civil Rights Movement and helped change society. All Rights Reserved. Email us: talk@npr.org. They will be concerned about Guatemala and Peru. 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. 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. A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death. Now they languish under our bombs and consider us not their fellow Vietnamese the real enemy. They were led by Ho Chi Minh. Mr. SMILEY: Yeah. In that address, he articulated his reasons for his opposition to the Southeast Asian conflict. I would like to see the fervor of the civil-rights movement imbued into the peace movement to instill it with greater strength. Howard's calling us from South Bend. 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. Attachment 4: Are We Ready to Listen to Dr. King? So it was a great turnout. Hb```f``; 6Pco;{Q. 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A small donation would help us keep this available to all. And so I think most Americans, Neal, know the "I Have A Dream" speech. But most Americans, I think, do not know this speech, "Beyond Vietnam.". Read The Full Text And Listen To Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "Beyond Vietnam" Speech. Martin Luther King, Jr. believed that peace and economic justice were critical to his fight for human rights. Dr. King is trying to get the point across that our country is being unfair to others. They wander into the hospitals, with at least twenty casualties from American firepower for one Vietcong-inflicted injury. 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. On 4 April 1967 Martin Luther King, Jr., delivered his seminal speech at Riverside Church condemning the Vietnam War. Full text of speech. 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. or 404 526-8968. . In 1957 a sensitive American official overseas said that it seemed to him that our nation was on the wrong side of a world revolution. 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. In describing the ways in which the . And King had preached at this church any number of times before, of course. King, Excerpts, Address at mass rally on 12 August 1965, 13 August 1965, MLKJP-GAMK. It includes a portion of his speech. 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. 0000002605 00000 n His speech appears below. I must cry out when I see war escalated at any point (Opposes Vietnam War). Copyright 2010 NPR. They see the children, degraded by our soldiers as they beg for food. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. gave a speech opposing the Vietnam War in April 1967. We must rapidly begin the shift from a thing-oriented society to a person-oriented society. So King understood violence. Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community? Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was born in Atlanta, GA on January 15th, 1929. They will be concerned about Thailand and Cambodia. Therefore the first hope in our inventory must be the hope that love is going to have the last word.. 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. During the last year of his life, King worked with Spock to develop Vietnam Summer, a volunteer project to increase grassroots peace activism in time for the 1968 elections. We have destroyed their land and their crops. 159. They see the children selling their sisters to our soldiers, soliciting for their mothers. You can also join the conversation at our Web site. "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. 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. 0000002025 00000 n 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. As Arnold Toynbee says : Love is the ultimate force that makes for the saving choice of life and good against the damning choice of death and evil. He knows the bombing and shelling and mining we are doing are part of traditional pre-invasion strategy. 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. I speak for the poor of America who are paying the double price of smashed hopes at home and death and corruption in Vietnam. The New York Times calls it wasteful and self-defeating. Mr. SMILEY: And therein lies the rub. PBS talk show. 0000043425 00000 n This speech was written and basically read word for word so that they could have a copy to give to mainstream newspapers across the country for their consideration, because King did not want to be misquoted Mr. SMILEY: or misunderstood, although that didn't work. 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. between the war in Vietnam and the struggle I, and others, have been waging in America. They wander into the towns and see thousands of the children, homeless, without clothes, running in packs on the streets like animals. CONAN: And the place - choice of place is very interesting too. 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. 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. But the entire speech, of course, thankfully, was recorded on audio. Let us hope that this spirit will become the order of the day. In Martin Luther King Jr.'s Vietnam speech, lines 413-416, he repeats the phrase "this is not just" (161). This kind of positive revolution of values is our best defense against communism. It is with such activity in mind that the words of the late John F. Kennedy come back to haunt us. A few years ago there was a shining moment in that. In his 1967 speech on the Vietnam War, Martin Luther King, Jr. employs figurative language and syntactical elements to construct his argument against the hypocrisy and cruelty of American involvement in the war. Even before the French were defeated at Dien Bien Phu, they began to despair of the reckless action, but we did not. As if the weight of such a commitment to the life and health of America were not enough, another burden of responsibility was placed upon me in 1964; and I cannot forget that the Nobel Prize for Peace was also a commission a commission to work harder than I had ever worked before for the brotherhood of man. This is a calling that takes me beyond national allegiances, but even if it were not present I would yet have to live with the meaning of my commitment to the ministry of Jesus Christ. When Diem was overthrown they may have been happy, but the long line of military dictatorships seemed to offer no real changeespecially in terms of their need for land and peace. CONAN: We're talking with Tavis Smiley about his PBS special, "Tavis Smiley Reports MLK: A Call to Conscience." Surely we must understand their feelings even if we do not condone their actions. Why are you joining the voices of dissent? So all that we have is less than 10 minutes of video of the speech. Indeed, their questions suggest that they do not know the world in which they live. Perhaps only his sense of humor and of irony can save him when he hears the most powerful nation of the world speaking of aggression as it drops thousands of bombs on a poor weak nation more than eight thousand miles away from its shores. A few years ago there was a shining moment. 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. In order to atone for our sins and errors in Vietnam, we should take the initiative in bringing a halt to this tragic war. [11], King's opposition cost him significant support among white allies, including President Johnson, Billy Graham,[citation needed] union leaders and powerful publishers. 0000001700 00000 n 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 peasants may well wonder if we plan to build our new Vietnam on such grounds as these? I Have a Dream, speech by Martin Luther King, Jr., that was delivered on August 28, 1963, during the March on Washington. 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. [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. Thanks, as always for your time. Others, including James Bevel, King's partner and strategist in the Civil Rights Movement, called it King's most important speech. 0000001616 00000 n A true revolution of values will soon cause us to question the fairness and justice of many of our past and present policies. There are people who have come to see the moral imperative of equality, but who cannot yet see the moral imperative of world brotherhood. Due to the Vietnam War is that plenty of individuals, both Americans and Vietnamese were killed. These are revolutionary times. In "People and Peace, not Profits and War," Shirley Chisholm repeats the words "two more years" (42). 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. We have corrupted their women and children and killed their men. Is it among these voiceless ones? 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. All rights reserved. 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. So this was a huge, huge speech that got Martin King in more trouble than anything he had ever said or done. Screenshots are considered by the King Estate a violation of this notice. We encouraged them with our huge financial and military supplies to continue the war even after they had lost the will. Attachment 2: Definitions Attachment 3: King Opposed Vietnam War; We Must Oppose US War in Iraq. "It basically ruins their relationship," says Smiley. He did say he was going to increase troop levels in Afghanistan, so he's kept that promise. 0000001427 00000 n Appreciate it. No, Howard, I thank you for your phone call. CONAN: And I think a lot of people will see your parallels regarding Iraq, where, indeed, the United States was the aggressor in that conflict. 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 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. 0000004621 00000 n What do they think of our condoning the violence which led to their own taking up of arms? At the time, civil rights leaders publicly condemned him for it. Now let us rededicate ourselves to the long and bitter but beautifulstruggle for a new world. 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. What liberators? 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. 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! 0000003199 00000 n [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. 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. We have cooperated in the crushing of the nations only non-Communist revolutionary political force the unified Buddhist church.

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martin luther king jr vietnam war speech transcript