martin luther king jr vietnam war speech transcriptmartin luther king jr vietnam war speech transcript

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. I speak for those whose land is being laid waste, whose homes are being destroyed, whose culture is being subverted. We must continue to raise our voices if our nation persists in its perverse ways in Vietnam. King Scores Poverty Budget, New York Times, 16 December 1966. And that's just the Times and the Post. The Vietnamese people proclaimed their own independence in 1945 after a combined French and Japanese occupation, and before the Communist revolution in China. Now let us rededicate ourselves to the long and bitter but beautifulstruggle for a new world. So it was a great turnout. 0000001700 00000 n Legendary civil rights leader Rev. CONAN: We (unintelligible) to see it. 5. PBS talk show host Tavis Smiley's new documentary, MLK: A Call to Conscience explores King's speech. 0000002516 00000 n By the time King made the "Beyond Vietnam" speech, Smiley tells host Neal Conan, "he had fallen off already the list of most-admired Americans as tallied by Gallup every year." This Hindu-Moslem-Christian-Jewish-Buddhist belief about ultimate reality is beautifully summed up in the first epistle of Saint John: Let us love one another; for love is God and everyone that loveth is born of God and knoweth God. He did say he was going to increase troop levels in Afghanistan, so he's kept that promise. NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. 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. It basically ruined their working relationship. I've always thought that was, to me, his best speech, his most consequential speech, even better than I have a dream in the mountain top speech. And as I ponder the madness of Vietnam and search within myself for ways to understand and respond to compassion my mind goes constantly to the people of that peninsula. However, you argue strongly in the film that it was completely consistent with the nature and the character of Dr. King and something he needed to say. Before he was assassinated at age 39, the Rev. Five years ago he said, Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.. ", In 1967, a year to the day before his death, Martin Luther King, Jr. departed from his message of civil rights to deliver a speech that denounced America's war in Vietnam. Smiley spoke with both scholars and friends of King, including Cornel West, Vincent Harding and Susannah Heschel. What of the National Liberation Front that strangely anonymous group we call VC or Communists? His house was bombed. CONAN: And the place - choice of place is very interesting too. Check your local listings. So he was no longer on that particular list. JwNt YHiA:{p . 0000002427 00000 n 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. In the 1950s and 1960s, his words led the Civil Rights Movement and helped change society. Martin Luther King's Beyond Vietnam Speech is in many ways even more relevant today than in 1967. . That's at npr.org, click on TALK OF THE NATION. Martin Luther King Jr. held his acceptance speech in the auditorium of the University of Oslo on 10 December 1964. 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. 0000040748 00000 n 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. capitalism, and the Vietnam War. 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. Mr. TAVIS SMILEY (Host, "The Tavis Smiley Show"): Neal, always an honor to be on with you. Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library, Washington, D.C. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Library, San Jose, April 15, 1967 Anti-Vietnam war demonstrations, 1968 Democratic National Convention protests, Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District, Fifth Avenue Vietnam Peace Parade Committee, National Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam, John F. Kennedy's speech to the nation on Civil Rights, Heart of Atlanta Motel, Inc. v. United States, Chicago Freedom Movement/Chicago open housing movement, Green v. County School Board of New Kent County, Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights, Council for United Civil Rights Leadership, Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), "Woke Up This Morning (With My Mind Stayed On Freedom)", List of lynching victims in the United States, Birmingham Civil Rights National Monument, Medgar and Myrlie Evers Home National Monument, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Beyond_Vietnam:_A_Time_to_Break_Silence&oldid=1133369048, Wikipedia articles needing page number citations from January 2023, Articles with unsourced statements from January 2023, Articles with unsourced statements from December 2021, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, This page was last edited on 13 January 2023, at 12:35. 0000008347 00000 n Speeches, writings, movements, and protests, Opposition to United States involvement in the Vietnam War, Spring Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam. This is the calling of the sons of God, and our brothers wait eagerly for our response. Surely we must understand their feelings even if we do not condone their actions. There are people who have come to see the moral imperative of equality, but who cannot yet see the moral imperative of world brotherhood. And Tavis, nice to have you back in the program. (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. 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. He rarely gave speeches from a text. [11], King's opposition cost him significant support among white allies, including President Johnson, Billy Graham,[citation needed] union leaders and powerful publishers. 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. They question our political goals and they deny the reality of a peace settlement from which they will be excluded. 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. Rev. Robert B. Semple, Jr., Dr. Du Bois to Coretta Scott King: The Untold History of the Movement to Ban the Bomb. President Obama, this is one campaign promise that he has kept. But anyway, where he says, I am mindful of those who spoke at this podium, this spot before me, including Martin Luther King and that I stand on his shoulders as a champion of civil rights. Due to the Vietnam War is that plenty of individuals, both Americans and Vietnamese were killed. And so I think most Americans, Neal, know the "I Have A Dream" speech. 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. He would no longer be respected. Over the bleached bones and jumbled residue of numerous civilizations are written the pathetic words: Too late. There is an invisible book of life that faithfully records our vigilance or our neglect. They will be concerned about Guatemala and Peru. This kind of positive revolution of values is our best defense against communism. Shall we tell them the struggle is too hard? 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. 0000047501 00000 n 3. W. E. B. 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. The United States Congress was spending more and more on the military and less and less on anti-poverty programs at the same time. Declare a unilateral cease-fire in the hope that such action will create the atmosphere for negotiation. 0000009168 00000 n To speak for them is to explain this lack of confidence in Western words, and especially their distrust of American intentions now. 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. This is TALK OF THE NATION from NPR News in Washington. "[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. 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. Mr. SMILEY: And therein lies the rub. 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. And King had preached at this church any number of times before, of course. We are at the moment when our lives must be placed on the line if our nation is to survive its own folly. Dr. I want to thank you, as I know listeners do as well, for your service to this country. So far we may have killed a million of them mostly children. CONAN: Oh, the audio is terrible, though. I am convinced that if we are to get on the right side of the world revolution, we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. Now, it should be incandescently clear that no one who has any concern for the integrity and life of America today can ignore the present war. Grossfield, Stan. The situation is one in which we must be ready to turn sharply from our present ways. 0000002605 00000 n Mr. SMILEY: Yeah. Dr. King in a March 25, 1967 antiwar march in Chicago. Dr. King is trying to get the point across that our country is being unfair to others. We must find new ways to speak for peace in Vietnam and justice throughout the developing world a world that borders on our doors. Had the president stopped by giving Martin King his just respect - as he did, to his credit - it would have been okay. These are revolutionary times. 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. So, too, with Hanoi. He was stabbed at one time. In December 1966, testifying before a congressional subcommittee on budget priorities, King argued for a rebalancing of fiscal priorities away from Americas obsession with Vietnam and toward greater support for anti-poverty programs at home (Semple, Dr. 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. Copyright 2010 NPR. And King was prescient on this. 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. In 1968, King was planning a national occupation of Washington, D., to be called the Poor People's Campaign, when he was assassinated on April 4 in . In that address, he articulated his reasons for his opposition to the Southeast Asian conflict. Martin Luther King, Jr. 4 April 1967. 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. "[22] Even before the French were defeated at Dien Bien Phu, they began to despair of the reckless action, but we did not. On the evening of April 4, 1967, civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King lent his full-throated oratory to a growing chorus of opposition to the rapidly expanding American role in the Vietnam War. 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. His wife, Coretta Scott King, on the other hand, critiqued the war publicly for years before her husband did. We're talking with Tavis Smiley. 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. We must speak for them and raise the questions they cannot raise. Watch a newsfilm clip of the speech . Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was born in Atlanta, GA on January 15th, 1929. Fearful of being labeled a Communist, which would diminish the impact of his civil rights work, King tempered his criticism of U.S. policy in Vietnam through late 1965 and 1966. [16][17] King began to speak of the need for fundamental changes in the political and economic life of the nation, and more frequently expressed his opposition to the war and his desire to see a redistribution of resources to correct racial and economic injustice. We have destroyed their two most cherished institutions: the family and the village. 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. 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. Every nation must now develop an overriding loyalty to mankind as a whole in order to preserve the best in their individual societies. Accuracy and availability may vary. I have tried to offer them my deepest compassion while maintaining my conviction that social change comes most meaningfully through nonviolent action. We must speak with all the humility that is appropriate to our limited vision, but we must speak. They will be concerned about Mozambique and South Africa. Martin Luther King: Beyond Vietnam and Remaining Awake Through a Great Revolution, 90th Cong., 2d sess., Congressional Record 114 (9 April 1968): 93919397. Read The Full Text And Listen To Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "Beyond Vietnam" Speech. 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. 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. 159. I must cry out when I see war escalated at any point (Opposes Vietnam War). 0000043425 00000 n The Riverside Church donated largely with Rockefeller money. America, the richest and most powerful nation in the world, can well lead the way in this revolution of values. 0000005696 00000 n His speech appears below. Not only that, but then-President Lyndon Johnson disinvited King to the White House. 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. 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. Let's go to Walt(ph). Set a date that we will remove all foreign troops from Vietnam in accordance with the 1954 Geneva agreement. After the French were defeated it looked as if independence and land reform would come again through the Geneva agreements. 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. 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. And so the question was, Martin, why would you antagonize the president who has been our friend? 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. For nine years we vigorously supported the French in their abortive effort to recolonize Vietnam. Fifty years ago in 1967, Martin Luther King, Jr.. It is with such activity in mind that the words of the late John F. Kennedy come back to haunt us. A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death. It was written by activist and historian Vincent Harding. The great initiative in this war is ours. That's what I feel. It was, to your earlier point, the most controversial speech he ever gave. 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. Perhaps the more difficult but no less necessary task is to speak for those who have been designated as our enemies. [29], Excerpts from this speech are used in the songs "Together" and "Spirit" by Nordic Giants. 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. between the war in Vietnam and the struggle I, and others, have been waging in America. Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence . But there was a great turnout for the speech. We have cooperated in the crushing of the nations only non-Communist revolutionary political force the unified Buddhist church. Every man of humane convictions must decide on the protest that best suits his convictions, but we must all protest. We must not call everyone a Communist or an appeaser who advocates the seating of Red China in the United Nations and who recognizes that hate and hysteria are not the final answers to the problem of these turbulent days. 0000001739 00000 n 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. It can never be saved so long as it destroys the deepest hopes of men the world over. 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. Q%F70%iR! Please contact Intellectual Properties Management (IPM), the exclusive licensor of the Estate of Martin Luther King, Jr., Inc. atlicensing@i-p-m.comor 404 526-8968. The United States got involved in the Vietnam War because they wanted to stop the spread of communism. Dr. Benjamin Spock (2nd-L), Martin Luther King, Jr. (C), Father Frederick Reed and Cleveland Robinson lead a huge pacifist rally protesting U.S. involvement in the Vietnam war, Mar. [citation needed]. 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 . Martin Luther King, Jr. believed that peace and economic justice were critical to his fight for human rights. *];\n~~/iQ|h Q 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? 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. Because he received a letter from a little white girl who said, Dr. King, I read the newspaper that had you sneezed that blade would've moved, ruptured your aorta and you would've drowned in your own blood. The Institute cannot give permission to use or reproduce any of the writings, statements, or images of Martin Luther King, Jr. 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). The New York Times calls it wasteful and self-defeating. 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. hide caption. King, Excerpts, Address at mass rally on 12 August 1965, 13 August 1965, MLKJP-GAMK. "[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. We may cry out desperately for time to pause in her passage, but time is deaf to every plea and rushes on. BRC-NEWS: Black Radical Congress International News/Alerts/Announcements , Martin Luther King, Jr., delivering speech. 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. Martin Luther King Jr. announced his strong opposition to the war in Vietnam, the media attacked him for straying outside of his civil rights mandate. 0000002964 00000 n King to Weigh Civil Disobedience). (AFP via Getty Images) "Why are you speaking about the war, Dr. King? 0000006536 00000 n 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. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. They must weep as the bulldozers roar through their areas preparing to destroy the precious trees. [19][20], In a 1952 letter to Coretta Scott, he said: "I imagine you already know that I am much more socialistic in my economic theory than capitalistic"[21] In one speech, he stated that "something is wrong with capitalism" and claimed, "There must be a better distribution of wealth, and maybe America must move toward a democratic socialism. 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? Others, including James Bevel, King's partner and strategist in the Civil Rights Movement, called it King's most important speech. 39 0 obj << /Linearized 1 /O 44 /H [ 1739 286 ] /L 149455 /E 105346 /N 8 /T 148557 >> endobj xref 39 54 0000000016 00000 n Of course, he's assassinated in Memphis a year to the day later after giving this speech. 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.. That's what set so many of them off. Martin Luther King, Jr. utilizes figurative to emphasize the inhumanity and immorality of the war. 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. On April 4, 1967 Martin Luther King Jr. wrote a speech named, "Beyond Vietnam- A Time to Break Silence" addressing the Vietnam War. If we do not act we shall surely be dragged down the long dark and shameful corridors of time reserved for those who possess power without compassion, might without morality, and strength without sight. 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. In Martin Luther King Jr.'s Vietnam speech, lines 413-416, he repeats the phrase "this is not just" (161). But most Americans, I think, do not know this speech, "Beyond Vietnam.". It was a tactical mistake. 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. 0000012562 00000 n Surely we must see that our own computerized plans of destruction simply dwarf their greatest acts. "The press is being stacked against me", King said,[13] Carson and Shepard, 2001. 0000002004 00000 n So they go primarily women and children and the aged. Martin Luther King's Acceptance Speech, on the occasion of the award of the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo, 10 December 1964 Your Majesty, Your Royal Highness, Mr. President, Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen: 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. 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. 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. "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. King Leads Chicago). Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. gave a speech opposing the Vietnam War in April 1967. CONAN: And there's an interesting point you also make in the film that - or at least some of the participants in your film make - that were he alive today and saying the kinds of things you would expect him to say, given that speech, he probably would not be invited to many Martin Luther King Day celebrations.
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