martin luther king jr vietnam war speech transcript

Every nation must now develop an overriding loyalty to mankind as a whole in order to preserve the best in their individual societies. They see the children selling their sisters to our soldiers, soliciting for their mothers. Had the president stopped by giving Martin King his just respect - as he did, to his credit - it would have been okay. The great initiative in this war is ours. I speak as a child of God and brother to the suffering poor of Vietnam. "[9], King opposed the Vietnam War because it took money and resources that could have been spent on social welfare at home. "It basically ruins their relationship," says Smiley. Mr. SMILEY: Yeah, Walt, I thank you for sharing that story as well, for being courageous to tell it, number one. And we are spending money for a war abroad that ought to be spent for the war on poverty here at home. 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. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.: "Beyond Vietnam" - Zinn Education Project 0000009168 00000 n "[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. We encouraged them with our huge financial and military supplies to continue the war even after they had lost the will. 0000001616 00000 n Dr. And I believe everyone has a duty to be in both the civil-rights and peace movements. 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." Martin Luther King Jr.'s "Beyond Vietnam" was a powerful and angry speech that raged against the war. Paul A. Schuette, King Preaches on Non-Violence at Police-Guarded Howard Hall, Washington Post, 3 March 1965. And let's see if we can get another caller on the line. NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. You can also join the conversation at our Web site. These are the times for real choices and not false ones. 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. For the peasants this new government meant real land reform, one of the most important needs in their lives. At the U.N. King also brought up issues of civil rights and the draft. 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. 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. So this was a huge, huge speech that got Martin King in more trouble than anything he had ever said or done. His tireless work advocating for the end of. . Martin Luther King Beyond Vietnam Speech Full Text and Video So King understood violence. Of course, again, that philosophy, when the papers got a hold of him the next day, that strategy didn't work so well. "[22] Surely we must see that the men we supported pressed them to their violence. Dr. 2/QB(yQVz^*oU.FW 0000005696 00000 n 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. For nine years we vigorously supported the French in their abortive effort to recolonize Vietnam. 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. 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. Martin Luther King, Jr. utilizes figurative to emphasize the inhumanity and immorality of the war. If Americas soul becomes totally poisoned, part of the autopsy must read Vietnam. 0000002337 00000 n 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! 800-989-8255, email us talk@npr.org. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. led the 1955 Montgomery bus boycott, organized the 1963 March on Washington, advocated for civil disobedience and. BRC-NEWS: Black Radical Congress International News/Alerts/Announcements , Martin Luther King, Jr., delivering speech. Some civil rights leaders urged King not to speak out on the Vietnam War, but he said he could not separate issues of economic injustice, racism, war, and militarism. 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. True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar; it is not haphazard and superficial. This is Howard, which you know me. 0000003415 00000 n 0000002784 00000 n Those pictures turned Dr. King's stomach. 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. A true revolution of values will lay hands on the world order and say of war: This way of settling differences is not just. This business of burning human beings with napalm, of filling our nations homes with orphans and widows, of injecting poisonous drugs of hate into veins of people normally humane, of sending men home from dark and bloody battlefields physically handicapped and psychologically deranged, cannot be reconciled with wisdom, justice and love. And that's the issue that King was raising. Could it be that they do not know that the good news was meant for all men for Communist and capitalist, for their children and ours, for black and for white, for revolutionary and conservative? Later that year King framed the issue of war in Vietnam as a moral issue: As a minister of the gospel, he said, I consider war an evil. Fifty years ago in 1967, Martin Luther King, Jr.. Surely we must see that our own computerized plans of destruction simply dwarf their greatest acts. 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. At what cost? Copy of full text of the "Beyond Vietnam" speech. 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. 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. 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. "This was a huge, huge speech," he continues, "that got Martin King in more trouble than anything he had ever seen or done. But most Americans, I think, do not know this speech, "Beyond Vietnam.". We must speak with all the humility that is appropriate to our limited vision, but we must speak. Let's get Howard(ph) on the line. I just wanted to say that I was an 18-year-old Marine in Vietnam when the speech was given, and I didn't hear it until three or four years ago. 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. Well, it was taken in that context, anyway. A call for equality and freedom, it became one of the defining moments of the civil rights movement and one of the most iconic speeches in American history. Excuse me. The problem was that practically everyone in his inner circle - not all, there was James Bevel and a couple of others - but practically everyone in his inner circle advised him strongly not to give this speech. 0000010534 00000 n 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). [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. Dr. Martin Luther King's 'Beyond Vietnam' Speech - HistoryNet capitalism, and the Vietnam 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. 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. 0000009964 00000 n Attachment 2: Definitions Attachment 3: King Opposed Vietnam War; We Must Oppose US War in Iraq. April 4, 1967: Martin Luther King Jr. Delivers "Beyond Vietnam" Speech 0000044282 00000 n Now there is little left to build onsave bitterness. 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 speak for them and raise the questions they cannot raise. Is it among these voiceless ones? They must see Americans as strange liberators. dH(*b(jGB@'k1zTR~{dA9|\b. And it was on that occasion that he - when he saw those pictures, said, I have to speak out about this. 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. And thirdly, I think the main point here in this MLK "Beyond Vietnam" speech is that there is another way. MARTIN LUTHER KING JR.: I speak as a child of God and brother to the suffering poor of Vietnam. Opposes Vietnam War, New York Times, 11 November 1965. How Did Martin Luther King Jr Use Of Figurative Language This has driven many to feel that only Marxism has the revolutionary spirit. They know they must move or be destroyed by our bombs. This is the message of the great Buddhist leaders of Vietnam. Martin Luther King, Jr. believed that peace and economic justice were critical to his fight for human rights. 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. 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., giving his speech Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence at Riverside Church in NYC, April 4, 1967. [citation needed]. 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. They will be concerned about Mozambique and South Africa. And Walt's with us from Cortez in Colorado. No, Howard, I thank you for your phone call. On April 4, 1967, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered a controversial sermon opposing the Vietnam War at Riverside Church in Morningside Heights, then helped lead a large antiwar march from Central Park to the United Nations later that month. Robert B. Semple, Jr., Dr. During the past ten years we have seen emerge a pattern of suppression which now has justified the presence of U.S. military advisors in Venezuela. In Martin Luther King Jr.'s Vietnam speech, lines 413-416, he repeats the phrase "this is not just" (161). 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 . Let's go to Walt(ph). "The press is being stacked against me", King said,[13] Or will there be another message, of longing, of hope, of solidarity with their yearnings, of commitment to their cause, whatever the cost? [citation needed]. 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. 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. Beyond Vietnam: The MLK speech that caused an uproar. Martin Luther King, Jr. (January 15, 1929 - April 4, 1968) Soon we would be paying almost the full costs of this tragic attempt at recolonization. We had to do a whole lot of work in the booth trying to get that audio right. [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. Afghanistan, not so much. [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". "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. Some, like civil rights leader Ralph Bunche, the NAACP, and the editorial page writers of The Washington Post[3] and The New York Times[4] called the Riverside Church speech a mistake on King's part. 0000004834 00000 n %PDF-1.3 % 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. Delivered by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. at Manhattan's Riverside Church, April 4, 1967 . Keep in mind now that 1967, Neal, as you know, is the same year that Muhammad Ali, the world champion, decides to not accept that draft to go and fight in Vietnam. Mr. TAVIS SMILEY (Host, "The Tavis Smiley Show"): Neal, always an honor to be on with you. After 1954 they watched us conspire with Diem to prevent elections which would have surely brought Ho Chi Minh to power over a united Vietnam, and they realized they had been betrayed again. Legendary civil rights leader Rev. I am speaking of that force which all of the great religions have seen as the supreme unifying principle of life. 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. A few years ago there was a shining moment. We have corrupted their women and children and killed their men. The United States Congress was spending more and more on the military and less and less on anti-poverty programs at the same time. HOWARD: How are you doing, Tavis? Email us: talk@npr.org. 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. In that address, he articulated his reasons for his opposition to the Southeast Asian conflict. 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. M ost Americans remember Martin Luther King Jr. for his dream of what this country could be, a nation where his children would "not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content. 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. 0000012562 00000 n PBS talk show host Tavis Smiley's new documentary, MLK: A Call to Conscience explores King's speech. Undeterred, King, Spock, and Harry Belafonte led 10,000 demonstrators on an anti-war march to the United Nations on 15 April 1967. Arent you hurting the cause of your people, they ask? When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered. 0000002964 00000 n It is a sad fact that, because of comfort, complacency, a morbid fear of communism, and our proneness to adjust to injustice, the Western nations that initiated so much of the revolutionary spirit of the modern world have now become the arch anti-revolutionaries. Instead, we decided to support France in its reconquest of her former colony. Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence - Wikipedia In this speech, he opposes violence and militarism, particularly the war in Vietnam. Now let us rededicate ourselves to the long and bitter but beautifulstruggle for a new world. 0000004855 00000 n Mr. SMILEY: And therein lies the rub. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. gave a speech opposing the Vietnam War in April 1967. His wife, Coretta Scott King, on the other hand, critiqued the war publicly for years before her husband did. There were experiments, hopes, new beginnings. 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. In his last Sunday sermon, delivered at the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C., on 31 March 1968, King said that he was convinced that [Vietnam] is one of the most unjust wars that has ever been fought in the history of the world (King, Remaining Awake, 219). 0000006536 00000 n 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. In that address, he articulated his reasons for his opposition to the Southeast Asian conflict. 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. Then we must make what reparations we can for the damage we have done. It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring. 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. [citation needed] Content [ edit] So practically everybody was opposed to him giving this speech. 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. King 's work to eradicate racial segregation was abruptly halted when he was assassinated on April 4, 1968, on the balcony of Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee. 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. They question our political goals and they deny the reality of a peace settlement from which they will be excluded. [6] At the urging of people such as SCLC's former Director of Direct Action and now the head of the Spring Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam, James Bevel, and inspired by the outspokenness of Muhammad Ali,[7] King eventually agreed to publicly oppose the war as opposition was growing among the American public. I speak as an American to the leaders of my own nation. 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. 0000008347 00000 n 0000011739 00000 n What do they think of our condoning the violence which led to their own taking up of arms? Carson and Shepard, 2001. A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death. I guess the question now is whether or not Afghanistan is a war of necessity or a war of choice. So even McNamara eventually comes around to that point. 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. Martin Luther King: Beyond Vietnam and Remaining Awake Through a Great Revolution, 90th Cong., 2d sess., Congressional Record 114 (9 April 1968): 93919397. Check your local listings. 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). "MLK: A Call to Conscience" premieres on PBS tomorrow night. 0000005717 00000 n Do you find this information helpful? 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. For nine years following 1945 we denied the people of Vietnam the right of independence. Hb```f``; 6Pco;{Q. 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