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 . 39 0 obj
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There is.a very obvious and almost facile connection between the war in Vietnam and the struggle I and others have been waging in America. The cornerstones of his activism were based on non-violence and civil disobedience, both of which were inspired by his Christian faith and the teachings of Mahatma Gandhi. So they go primarily women and children and the aged. 0000017817 00000 n
A few years ago there was a shining moment in that struggle. He passed the Voting Rights Act. 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. MARTIN LUTHER KING JR.: I speak as a child of God and brother to the suffering poor of Vietnam. CONAN: And the place - choice of place is very interesting too. 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. He would no longer be respected. Perhaps the more difficult but no less necessary task is to speak for those who have been designated as our enemies. Kings opposition to the war provoked criticism from members of Congress, the press, and from his civil rights colleagues who argued that expanding his civil rights message to include foreign affairs would harm the black freedom struggle in America. Communism will never be defeated by the use of atomic bombs or nuclear weapons. 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? 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. Email us: talk@npr.org. 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. For as popular as King was, he was a Nobel laureate, there were only one or two news crews who actually came to see the speech that night, Neal. A small donation would help us keep this available to all. 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. 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. So, that's all I had to say. This is Howard, which you know me. Sorry, I'm a little bit emotional here. (1997). 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. In this unfolding conundrum of life and history there is such a thing as being too late. 0000003996 00000 n
At what cost? CONAN: "MLK: A Call to Conscience" premieres on PBS tomorrow night. 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. NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. Now let us rededicate ourselves to the long and bitter but beautifulstruggle for a new world. Dr. King is trying to get the point across that our country is being unfair to others. ml.K-x1x*tcSO p[
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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. 20072023 Blackpast.org. 2. 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. 0000002964 00000 n
"[24] King condemned America's "alliance with the landed gentry of Latin America", and said that the U.S. should support "the shirtless and barefoot people" in the Third World rather than suppressing their attempts at revolution. The image of America will never again be the image of revolution, freedom and democracy, but the image of violence and militarism.. Procrastination is still the thief of time. In the north, where our bombs now pummel the land, and our mines endanger the waterways, we are met by a deep but understandable mistrust. WALT (Caller): Yes. And number two, at what cost? 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." True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar; it is not haphazard and superficial. 0000008347 00000 n
So it was a great turnout. 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 . So 60 year(ph) is really, really a hot year here around this particular issue. Undeterred, King, Spock, and Harry Belafonte led 10,000 demonstrators on an anti-war march to the United Nations on 15 April 1967. [citation needed]. 0000002004 00000 n
That night Dr. King shocked the world and his followers when . One day we must come to see that the whole Jericho road must be transformed so that men and women will not be constantly beaten and robbed as they make their journey on lifes highway. 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. It can never be saved so long as it destroys the deepest hopes of men the world over. The Institute cannot give permission to use or reproduce any of the writings, statements, or images of Martin Luther King, Jr. 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. Tavis Smiley joins us today from the Sheryl Flowers Studios in Los Angeles. 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. Such thoughts take us beyond Vietnam, but not beyond our calling as sons of the living God. We most provide the medical aid that is badly needed, making it available in this country if necessary. Have they forgotten that my ministry is in obedience to the one who loved his enemies so fully that he died for them? 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. Surely we must understand their feelings even if we do not condone their actions. 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. 4. At the heart of their concerns this query has often loomed large and loud: Why are you speaking about war, Dr. King? 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. But the entire speech, of course, thankfully, was recorded on audio. Martin Luther King Jr. held his acceptance speech in the auditorium of the University of Oslo on 10 December 1964. "[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. (Scott) King,My Life with Martin Luther King, Jr., 1969. 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. 0000005696 00000 n
We must speak with all the humility that is appropriate to our limited vision, but we must speak. 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. I speak for those whose land is being laid waste, whose homes are being destroyed, whose culture is being subverted. And so the question was, Martin, why would you antagonize the president who has been our friend? 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 . 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. We have supported the enemies of the peasants of Saigon. Excuse me. Martin Luther King, Jr., gave a speech that may have helped put a target on . Before the end of the war we were meeting eighty percent of the French war costs. "The press is being stacked against me", King said,[13] Those pictures turned Dr. King's stomach. The Vietnamese people proclaimed their own independence in 1945 after a combined French and Japanese occupation, and before the Communist revolution in China. We must stop now. 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. And about a month after that speech was given, I was wounded. Attachment 2: Definitions Attachment 3: King Opposed Vietnam War; We Must Oppose US War in Iraq. All rights reserved. Afghanistan, not so much. 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. Not only that, but then-President Lyndon Johnson disinvited King to the White House. 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. Martin Luther King: Beyond Vietnam and Remaining Awake Through a Great Revolution, 90th Cong., 2d sess., Congressional Record 114 (9 April 1968): 93919397. They wander into the hospitals, with at least twenty casualties from American firepower for one Vietcong-inflicted injury. 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. "[24] King quoted a United States official who said that from Vietnam to Latin America, the country was "on the wrong side of a world revolution.