martin luther king jr vietnam war speech transcript

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. A genuine revolution of values means in the final analysis that our loyalties must become ecumenical rather than sectional. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s 1967 speech in New York. 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. There were experiments, hopes, new beginnings. 0000013408 00000 n And King had preached at this church any number of times before, of course. 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. Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence . 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." 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. Let's go to Walt(ph). In this speech, he opposes violence and militarism, particularly the war in Vietnam. Then we must make what reparations we can for the damage we have done. Arent you hurting the cause of your people, they ask? Our government felt then that the Vietnamese people were not ready for independence, and we again fell victim to the deadly Western arrogance that has poisoned the international atmosphere for so long. 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. 800-989-8255. A few years ago there was a shining moment in that struggle. 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. Benjamin Hedin on Martin Luther King, Jr.'s, anti-Vietnam War speech at Riverside Church in New York, which risked King's relationship with Lyndon Johnson. Martin Luther King's Speech Against the Vietnam War Or will there be another message, of longing, of hope, of solidarity with their yearnings, of commitment to their cause, whatever the cost? His house was bombed. Even before the French were defeated at Dien Bien Phu, they began to despair of the reckless action, but we did not. "It basically ruins their relationship," says Smiley. Mr. SMILEY: We - let me just tell you this. [29], Excerpts from this speech are used in the songs "Together" and "Spirit" by Nordic Giants. 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. 0000002025 00000 n [28], A portion of this speech is used in the track "Wisdom, Justice, and Love" by Linkin Park, from their 2010 album A Thousand Suns. And Tavis, nice to have you back in the program. King, Remaining Awake Through a Great Revolution, in A Knock at Midnight, ed. 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. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, for example, issued a statement against merging the civil rights and peace movements. CONAN: We're talking with Tavis Smiley about his PBS special, "Tavis Smiley Reports MLK: A Call to Conscience." He passed the Civil Rights Act. complaining of what he described as a double standard that applauded his nonviolence at home, but deplored it when applied "toward little brown Vietnamese children. PDF Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence ~ MLK Speech 1967 - CRM Vet A few years ago there was a shining moment in that. It was a tactical mistake. 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. The peasants may well wonder if we plan to build our new Vietnam on such grounds as these? 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]. Now they languish under our bombs and consider us not their fellow Vietnamese the real enemy. The True Martin Luther King, Jr. New York: Free Press. We are now faced with the fact that tomorrow is today. 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. Life magazine called the speech "demagogic slander that sounded like a script for Radio Hanoi",[9] and The Washington Post declared that King had "diminished his usefulness to his cause, his country, his people. 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. King's "Beyond Vietnam" speech was delivered at the Riverside Church in New York exactly one year before his assassination. 0000012562 00000 n ) fuG {*pZ//e,QTx)%TuS%@^2j/?Nf7nx!]OvqJG=_oD3?VUMs+tM95X )G~1b'g])!`]:|OwHh-J6ZHg{Z9N3b!\#9"zhT\]sp2WtTal =YvkO8yu 6^,n,v$+u$|^1wUF}GGc=p!e#F\]xx6l~NTYSmc /ut^*WTPO Cp =-FQW.]y#F6NsQ2Qzqz=|v94+JC?w4,|yi4T0eIaaeD2-Y1 0000030467 00000 n These are revolutionary times. Summary Of Martin Luther King Jr Vietnam Speech | ipl.org (1997). They see the children selling their sisters to our soldiers, soliciting for their mothers. Stanford University, Stanford, California 94305. [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. 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. Instead, we decided to support France in its reconquest of her former colony. The world now demands a maturity of America that we may not be able to achieve. I must cry out when I see war escalated at any point (Opposes Vietnam War). Procrastination is still the thief of time. 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. They will be concerned about Mozambique and South Africa. 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. Therefore the first hope in our inventory must be the hope that love is going to have the last word.. 0000043425 00000 n 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. trailer << /Size 93 /Info 36 0 R /Root 40 0 R /Prev 148547 /ID[<8f2b4dd6f2f061944c7ff807c44fcc1f><651247ae294a1a197a948cb3bc3f8412>] >> startxref 0 %%EOF 40 0 obj << /Type /Catalog /Pages 38 0 R /Metadata 37 0 R /Threads 41 0 R /Names 43 0 R /OpenAction [ 44 0 R /XYZ null null null ] /PageMode /UseNone /PageLabels 35 0 R >> endobj 41 0 obj [ 42 0 R ] endobj 42 0 obj <> /F 45 0 R >> endobj 43 0 obj << /Dests 33 0 R >> endobj 91 0 obj << /S 76 /E 200 /L 216 /Filter /FlateDecode /Length 92 0 R >> stream Even though they quoted the American Declaration of Independence in their own document of freedom, we refused to recognize them. Dr. Martin Luther King's 'Beyond Vietnam' Speech - HistoryNet So it was a great turnout. Due to the Vietnam War is that plenty of individuals, both Americans and Vietnamese were killed. 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). 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? On 4 April 1967 Martin Luther King, Jr., delivered his seminal speech at Riverside Church condemning the Vietnam War. HOWARD: How are you doing, Tavis? Martin Luther King, Jr. believed that peace and economic justice were critical to his fight for human rights. Hb```f``; 6Pco;{Q. 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And I can't tell young black men, who are being denied right here in the streets of America, that they should offer themselves up and to sign themselves up to go - to do harm to people around the world who they do not know. Set a date that we will remove all foreign troops from Vietnam in accordance with the 1954 Geneva agreement. 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. 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. Now let us rededicate ourselves to the long and bitter but beautifulstruggle for a new world. dH(*b(jGB@'k1zTR~{dA9|\b. Before he was assassinated at age 39, the Rev. 0000040748 00000 n (1967) Martin Luther King, Jr., "Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence" So King understood violence. 0000001645 00000 n I speak as a child of God and brother to the suffering poor of Vietnam. 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. 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. A few years ago there was a shining moment. BlackPast.org is a 501(c)(3) non-profit and our EIN is 26-1625373. Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community? But there was a great turnout for the speech. BRC-NEWS: Black Radical Congress International News/Alerts/Announcements , Martin Luther King, Jr., delivering speech. The only change came from America as we increased our troop commitments in support of governments which were singularly corrupt, inept and without popular support. Of course, he's assassinated in Memphis a year to the day later after giving this speech. [27], In 2010, PBS commentator Tavis Smiley said that the speech was the most controversial speech of King's career, and the one he "labored over the most". What do they think of our condoning the violence which led to their own taking up of arms? P: (650) 723-2092 | F: (650) 723-2093 | kinginstitute@stanford.edu| Campus Map. PDF Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence - hawaii.edu "[9], King opposed the Vietnam War because it took money and resources that could have been spent on social welfare at home. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.: "Beyond Vietnam" - Zinn Education Project The MLK Speech We Need Today Is Not the One We Remember Most Vietnam War - The Martin Luther King, Jr., Research and Education Institute I'm Neal Conan. King to Weigh Civil Disobedience). They watch as we poison their water, as we kill a million acres of their crops. Read The Full Text And Listen To Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "Beyond Vietnam" Speech. "[14] A few other Americans know, of course, the "Mountaintop" speech given the night before he's assassinated in Memphis. The Riverside Church donated largely with Rockefeller money. Opposes Vietnam War, New York Times, 11 November 1965. 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. It demands that we admit that we have been wrong from the beginning of our adventure in Vietnam, that we have been detrimental to the life of the Vietnamese people. 0000047501 00000 n Some 250,000 people gathered at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., for the March on Washington. Speeches, writings, movements, and protests, Opposition to United States involvement in the Vietnam War, Spring Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam. It was a wonderful, I think, place to give the speech in the sense that it's pretty cavernous. We must move past indecision to action. It is not addressed to China or to Russia. They must weep as the bulldozers roar through their areas preparing to destroy the precious trees. Increasingly, by choice or by accident, this is the role our nation has taken the role of those who make peaceful revolution impossible by refusing to give up the privileges and the pleasures that come from the immense profits of overseas investment. "[8] He connected the war with economic injustice, arguing that the country needed serious moral change: A true revolution of values will soon look uneasily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth. In that address, he articulated his reasons for his opposition to the Southeast Asian conflict. King delivered a speech entitled Beyond Vietnam, pointing out that the war effort was 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 (King, Beyond Vietnam, 143). [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. 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 . Du Bois to Coretta Scott King: The Untold History of the Movement to Ban the Bomb. 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! So, that's all I had to say. They wander into the hospitals, with at least twenty casualties from American firepower for one Vietcong-inflicted injury. We have destroyed their two most cherished institutions: the family and the village. Martin Luther King Jr. held his acceptance speech in the auditorium of the University of Oslo on 10 December 1964. There is nothing to keep us from molding a recalcitrant status quo with bruised hands until we have fashioned it into a brotherhood. 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. Mr. SMILEY: And therein lies the rub. Some of us who have already begun to break the silence of the night have found that the calling to speak is often a vocation of agony, but we must speak. 0000001739 00000 n It can never be saved so long as it destroys the deepest hopes of men the world over. Let us not join those who shout war and through their misguided passions urge the United States to relinquish its participation in the United Nations. 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. 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. I come to this magnificent house of worship tonight because my conscience leaves me no other choice. Could we blame them for such thoughts? The speech and its echoes for Afghanistan and Iraq are the subject of "Tavis Smiley Reports MLK: A Call to Conscience.". They asked if our own nation wasnt using massive doses of violence to solve its problems, to bring about the changes it wanted. And so I think most Americans, Neal, know the "I Have A Dream" speech. 3. Let's get Howard(ph) on the line. That Vietnam was a mistake. I have not urged a mechanical fusion of the civil rights and peace movements. Surely we must understand their feelings even if we do not condone their actions. While his legacy is commonly remembered by his famous "I Have A Dream" speech, we've sourced four powerful, lesser-known speeches from Dr. King to listen to and commemorate . . Mr. SMILEY: Neal, thank you for the opportunity. These are days which demand wise restraint and calm reasonableness. 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. Declare a unilateral cease-fire in the hope that such action will create the atmosphere for negotiation. For nine years following 1945 we denied the people of Vietnam the right of independence. Moreover I would encourage all ministers of draft age to give up their ministerial exemptions and seek status as conscientious objectors. 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. 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: Surely we must see that the men we supported pressed them to their violence. Mr. SMILEY: Yeah. So they go primarily women and children and the aged. Check your local listings. PBS talk show host Tavis Smiley's new documentary, MLK: A Call to Conscience explores King's speech. JwNt YHiA:{p . "Beyond Vietnam" - The Martin Luther King, Jr., Research and Education It is with such activity in mind that the words of the late John F. Kennedy come back to haunt us. But LBJ disinvites him to the White House. It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring. For the sake of those boys, for the sake of this government, for the sake of hundreds of thousands trembling under our violence, I cannot be silent. A Comparative Study of Martin Luther King Jr & Malcolm X. by. So, too, with Hanoi. What liberators? Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., is known for being one of the greatest orators of the twentieth century, and perhaps in all of American history. But what I want - I think the question - I've always thought that Dr. King, that that speech about Vietnam was his best speech in my mind. On April 4, 1967 Martin Luther King Jr. wrote a speech named, "Beyond Vietnam- A Time to Break Silence" addressing the Vietnam War. Life often leaves us standing bare, naked and dejected with a lost opportunity. 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. April 30, 1967: "Why I Am Opposed to the War in Vietnam" Speech 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. 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? Those pictures turned Dr. King's stomach. We have cooperated in the crushing of the nations only non-Communist revolutionary political force the unified Buddhist church. "[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. 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. True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar; it is not haphazard and superficial. 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? 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. So practically everybody was opposed to him giving this speech. Shall we say the odds are too great? ", 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. I guess the question now is whether or not Afghanistan is a war of necessity or a war of choice. 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. [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. Martin built his speech that night, Neal, around three major points: around increasing militarism, around escalating poverty and around the issue of racism. 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 . 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. We have destroyed their land and their crops. 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. I Have a Dream | Date, Quotations, & Facts | Britannica

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