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So when the president suggests - and whether directly or indirectly, intentionally or unintentionally diminishes in that Nobel speech Martin's powerful, nonviolent philosophy, it tweaked some people, and you'll see that in the presentation Wednesday night. 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. It can never be saved so long as it destroys the deepest hopes of men the world over. 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). Fifty years ago in 1967, Martin Luther King, Jr.. 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? Let's get Howard(ph) on the line. 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. So 60 year(ph) is really, really a hot year here around this particular issue. 0000001739 00000 n Dr. King in a March 25, 1967 antiwar march in Chicago. The United States Congress was spending more and more on the military and less and less on anti-poverty programs at the same time. 0000002025 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. I've always argue that Dr. King is the greatest American we've ever produced. (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. 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. This speech is not addressed to Hanoi or to the National Liberation Front. 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." (Scott) King,My Life with Martin Luther King, Jr., 1969. It was the speech he labored over the most. But this is, again, precisely what King was concerned about, putting the lives of everyday Americans on the line in a fight that was not winnable and a war that was unjust. CONAN: We're talking with Tavis Smiley about his PBS special, "Tavis Smiley Reports MLK: A Call to Conscience." It was they who led a second struggle against French domination at tremendous costs, and then were persuaded to give up the land they controlled between the thirteenth and seventeenth parallel as a temporary measure at Geneva. These are days which demand wise restraint and calm reasonableness. 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. 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 . Before the end of the war we were meeting eighty percent of the French war costs. 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 . I have not urged a mechanical fusion of the civil rights and peace movements. PBS talk show host Tavis Smiley's new documentary, MLK: A Call to Conscience explores King's speech. 800-989-8255. 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, 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 ). Fifty-years ago in April 1967, the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., delivered one of his most memorable, if not controversial sermons, at Riverside Church just steps away from the Columbia University campus. Due to the Vietnam War is that plenty of individuals, both Americans and Vietnamese were killed. 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. . 0000040748 00000 n 0000047501 00000 n 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. Watch a newsfilm clip of the speech . 1967 speech delivered by Martin Luther King Jr. Delivered by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. at Manhattan's Riverside Church, April 4, 1967 . And that's the issue that King was raising. Martin Luther King April 4, 1967 Riverside Church, New York City . AFP/AFP/Getty Images That Vietnam was a mistake. I come to this magnificent house of worship tonight because my conscience leaves me no other choice. This is the calling of the sons of God, and our brothers wait eagerly for our response. Now they languish under our bombs and consider us not their fellow Vietnamese the real enemy. Mr. SMILEY: Yeah. W. E. B. 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? 0000011739 00000 n Jazmyn Ford. 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. 16, 1967 in New York. 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. or 404 526-8968. There were experiments, hopes, new beginnings. I am speaking of that force which all of the great religions have seen as the supreme unifying principle of life. Perhaps the more difficult but no less necessary task is to speak for those who have been designated as our enemies. King Leads Chicago). Martin Luther King Jr.'s "Beyond Vietnam" was a powerful and angry speech that raged against the war. 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. 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. NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. For nine years following 1945 we denied the people of Vietnam the right of independence. Therefore, communism is a judgment against our failure to make democracy real and follow through on the revolutions we initiated. They move sadly and apathetically as we herd them off the land of their fathers into concentration camps where minimal social needs are rarely met. 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. We must move past indecision to action. CONAN: We (unintelligible) to see it. 4. 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. Martin Luther King, Jr. believed that peace and economic justice were critical to his fight for human rights. 2/QB(yQVz^*oU.FW Moreover I would encourage all ministers of draft age to give up their ministerial exemptions and seek status as conscientious objectors. We have destroyed their land and their crops. His wife, Coretta Scott King, on the other hand, critiqued the war publicly for years before her husband did. Procrastination is still the thief of time. Check your local listings. %PDF-1.3 % Excuse me. Screenshots are considered by the King Estate a violation of this notice. 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. 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'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. 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. His wife, Coretta Scott King, took a more active role in opposing the war, speaking at a rally at the Washington Monument on 27 November 1965 with Benjamin Spock, the renowned pediatrician and anti-war activist, and joined in other demonstrations. 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. We must stop now. He passed the Voting Rights Act. Martin Luther King, Jr., giving his speech Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence at Riverside Church in NYC, April 4, 1967. For nine years we vigorously supported the French in their abortive effort to recolonize Vietnam. At the U.N. King also brought up issues of civil rights and the draft. ml.K-x1x*tcSO p[ endstream endobj 62 0 obj 720 endobj 63 0 obj << /Filter /FlateDecode /Length 62 0 R >> stream 0000004834 00000 n Mr. SMILEY: Yeah, Walt, I thank you for sharing that story as well, for being courageous to tell it, number one. Mr. SMILEY: And therein lies the rub. We're talking with Tavis Smiley. And about a month after that speech was given, I was wounded. Or will there be another message, of longing, of hope, of solidarity with their yearnings, of commitment to their cause, whatever the cost? Martin Luther King, Jr. 4 April 1967. 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. [24], King's stance on Vietnam encouraged Allard K. Lowenstein, William Sloane Coffin and Norman Thomas, with the support of anti-war Democrats, to attempt to persuade King to run against President Johnson in the 1968 United States presidential election. Some 250,000 people gathered at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., for the March on Washington. His tireless work advocating for the end of. 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. 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. Mr. SMILEY: We - let me just tell you this. A small donation would help us keep this available to all. I could not be silent in the face of such cruel manipulation of the poor. He gave a famous speech about the fact that he - when stabbed in New York at a book signing, the blade was just a scintilla away from his aorta. So I was increasingly compelled to see the war as an enemy of the poor and to attack it as such. [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. I want to thank you, as I know listeners do as well, for your service to this country. "[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. While they both may have justifiable reason to be suspicious of the good faith of the United States, life and history give eloquent testimony to the fact that conflicts are never resolved without trustful give and take on both sides. 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. End all bombing in North and South Vietnam. This is Howard, which you know me. Here is the true meaning and value of compassion and nonviolence when it helps us to see the enemys point of view, to hear his questions, to know his assessment of ourselves. On April 4, 1967 Martin Luther King Jr. wrote a speech named, "Beyond Vietnam- A Time to Break Silence" addressing the Vietnam War. 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. Freedom's Ring: King's "I Have a Dream" Speech, Remaining Awake Through a Great Revolution, Martin Luther King, Jr. - Political and Social Views, Clergy and Laymen Concerned about Vietnam (CALCAV). Please c, ontact Intellectual Properties Management (IPM), the exclusive licensor of the Estate of Martin Luther King, Jr., Inc. at. 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. 0000002004 00000 n In so many words, powerful interests told him: "Mind your own business.". King's "Beyond Vietnam" speech was delivered at the Riverside Church in New York exactly one year before his assassination. Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community? 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. On this Wikipedia the language links are at the top of the page across from the article title. 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. 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. They see the children, degraded by our soldiers as they beg for food. After he gives it, 168 major newspapers the next day denounce him. 0000002874 00000 n Afghanistan, not so much. At what cost? 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. 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. And that's just the Times and the Post. Of course, he's assassinated in Memphis a year to the day later after giving this speech. It includes a portion of his speech. Your donation is fully tax-deductible. 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. But two, to the audio, there are only less than 10 minutes of this speech that got covered. And King gives a great speech out of that hospital called "If I Had Sneezed." Love is somehow the key that unlocks the door which leads to ultimate reality. Copy of full text of the "Beyond Vietnam" speech. 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. [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. Do you find this information helpful? The Vietnamese people proclaimed their own independence in 1945 after a combined French and Japanese occupation, and before the Communist revolution in China. That night Dr. King shocked the world and his followers when . Even before the French were defeated at Dien Bien Phu, they began to despair of the reckless action, but we did not. I speak as an American to the leaders of my own nation. 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. HOWARD: How are you doing, Tavis? In describing the ways in which the . 0000008347 00000 n Martin Luther King's Beyond Vietnam Speech is in many ways even more relevant today than in 1967. . 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. Attachment 2: Definitions Attachment 3: King Opposed Vietnam War; We Must Oppose US War in Iraq. 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. The Riverside Church donated largely with Rockefeller money. 0000003454 00000 n In this speech, he opposes violence and militarism, particularly the war in Vietnam. Mr. SMILEY: It's a powerful point made by Clayborne Carson at Stanford who is in charge, as you know, Neal, of the King papers. 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. 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. That's what I feel. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. gave a speech opposing the Vietnam War in April 1967. 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. In the light of such tragic misunderstandings, I deem it of signal importance to try to state clearly, and I trust concisely, why I believe that the path from Dexter Avenue Baptist Church the church in Montgomery, Alabama, where I began my pastorate leads clearly to this sanctuary tonight. He passed the Civil Rights Act. Nearly five years after Kings assassination, American troops withdrew from Vietnam and a peace treaty declared South and North Vietnam independent of each other. 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. 0000002694 00000 n hide caption. All rights reserved. A few years ago there was a shining moment in that. Declare a unilateral cease-fire in the hope that such action will create the atmosphere for negotiation. He knows the bombing and shelling and mining we are doing are part of traditional pre-invasion strategy. America, the richest and most powerful nation in the world, can well lead the way in this revolution of values. Attachment 4: Are We Ready to Listen to Dr. King? Mr. SMILEY: That's right. 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-concerned committees for the next generation. A few years ago there was a shining moment in that struggle. What must they think of us in America when they realize that we permitted the repression and cruelty of Diem which helped to bring them into being as a resistance group in the south? Challenges of the final years of Martin Luther King, Jr. 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. Thanks, as always for your time. 0000001645 00000 n I speak for the poor of America who are paying the double price of smashed hopes at home and death and corruption in Vietnam. They wander into the towns and see thousands of the children, homeless, without clothes, running in packs on the streets like animals. But most Americans, I think, do not know this speech, "Beyond Vietnam.". 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. His house was bombed. [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. 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. 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 .