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. So 60 year(ph) is really, really a hot year here around this particular issue. *];\n~~/iQ|h Q We must speak with all the humility that is appropriate to our limited vision, but we must speak. It seemed as if there was a real promise of hope for the poor both black and white through the poverty program. I come to this platform tonight to make a passionate plea to my beloved nation. When we ask why they do not leap to negotiate, these things must be remembered. 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. His speech appears below. (AFP via Getty Images) "Why are you speaking about the war, Dr. King? The United States got involved in the Vietnam War because they wanted to stop the spread of communism. The peasants watched and cringed as Diem ruthlessly routed out all opposition, supported their extortionist landlords and refused even to discuss reunification with the north. 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. Watch a newsfilm clip of the speech . The Washington Post says he has done a discredit to himself, to his people, to his country. Mr. SMILEY: Indeed he did, Neal. These too are our brothers. 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. His speech appears below. Q%F70%iR! So it was a great turnout. BlackPast.org is a 501(c)(3) non-profit and our EIN is 26-1625373. 0000004621 00000 n Martin Luther King Jr. Dr. King at Ebenezer Church. 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. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was born in Atlanta, GA on January 15th, 1929. We must stop now. 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. And I believe everyone has a duty to be in both the civil-rights and peace movements. Could we blame them for such thoughts? I want to thank you, as I know listeners do as well, for your service to this country. How can they trust us when now we charge them with violence after the murderous reign of Diem and charge them with violence while we pour every new weapon of death into their land? 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. Rev. 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. American Rhetoric: Martin Luther King, Jr: A Time to Break Silence (Declaration Against the Vietnam War) M artin L uther K ing, J r. Beyond Vietnam -- A Time to Break Silence Delivered 4 April 1967, Riverside Church, New York City [Photo Credit: John C. Goodwin] [AUTHENTICITY CERTIFIED: Text version below transcribed directly from audio. 0000009168 00000 n 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. 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 . (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. 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. PBS talk show. 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. 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. [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. For the peasants this new government meant real land reform, one of the most important needs in their lives. 0000002247 00000 n That's what set so many of them off. I speak as a citizen of the world, for the world as it stands aghast at the path we have taken. Shall we tell them the struggle is too hard? When I speak of love I am not speaking of some sentimental and weak response. They brought in extra chairs. They must weep as the bulldozers roar through their areas preparing to destroy the precious trees. 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. Smiley spoke with both scholars and friends of King, including Cornel West, Vincent Harding and Susannah Heschel. They were led by Ho Chi Minh. 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. 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. V)U5v\@apkk;#WF. 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. 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. Procrastination is still the thief of time. But they didn't stay for the speech in its entirety. We had to do a whole lot of work in the booth trying to get that audio right. And let's see if we can get another caller on the line. CONAN: Tavis Smiley, author, journalist, political commentator, host of his talk show on PBS, joins us today from the Sheryl Flowers Studios in Los Angeles. 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. 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. [citation needed], One of the eight "sound cells" in @Large, Ai Weiwei's 201415 exhibit at Alcatraz, features King's voice giving the "Beyond Vietnam" speech. [citation needed] Content [ edit] I am speaking of that force which all of the great religions have seen as the supreme unifying principle of life. 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. End all bombing in North and South Vietnam. 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. Martin Luther King, Jr. believed that peace and economic justice were critical to his fight for human rights. Their questions are frighteningly relevant. 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. So even McNamara eventually comes around to that point. 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. 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. A few years ago there was a shining moment in that struggle. 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. Thank you. Copy of full text of the "Beyond Vietnam" speech. 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. 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." 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. The image of America will never again be the image of revolution, freedom and democracy, but the image of violence and militarism.. 0000047501 00000 n Dr. A few other Americans know, of course, the "Mountaintop" speech given the night before he's assassinated in Memphis. Jazmyn Ford. [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. So this was a huge, huge speech that got Martin King in more trouble than anything he had ever said or done. 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. The United States Congress was spending more and more on the military and less and less on anti-poverty programs at the same time. Mr. SMILEY: And therein lies the rub. It basically ruined their working relationship. 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. I have tried to offer them my deepest compassion while maintaining my conviction that social change comes most meaningfully through nonviolent action. What do they think of our condoning the violence which led to their own taking up of arms? HT0WJ3 O$L So King understood violence. 0000004855 00000 n The oceans of history are made turbulent by the ever-rising tides of hate. BRC-NEWS: Black Radical Congress International News/Alerts/Announcements , Martin Luther King, Jr., delivering speech. 0000011739 00000 n We have destroyed their two most cherished institutions: the family and the village. 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. Martin Luther King Jr. held his acceptance speech in the auditorium of the University of Oslo on 10 December 1964. The truth of these words is beyond doubt but the mission to which they call us is a most difficult one. 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 . 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. While King was personally opposed to the war, he was concerned that publicly criticizing U.S. foreign policy would damage his relationship with President Lyndon B. Johnson, who had been instrumental in passing civil rights legislation and who had declared in April 1965 that he was willing to negotiate a diplomatic end to the war in Vietnam. King, Excerpts, Address at mass rally on 12 August 1965, 13 August 1965, MLKJP-GAMK. 0000007566 00000 n Even before the French were defeated at Dien Bien Phu, they began to despair of the reckless action, but we did not. 2. He turned that into a great speech when he got out of the hospital. I guess the question now is whether or not Afghanistan is a war of necessity or a war of choice. Dr. King in a March 25, 1967 antiwar march in Chicago. At what cost? hide caption. 0000001427 00000 n Mr. SMILEY: Well, I think the question is whether or not - I hear your point, Neal, and I take it. It was sending their sons and their brothers and their husbands to fight and to die in extraordinarily high proportions relative to the rest of the population. 0000009147 00000 n The people who sat in darkness have seen a great light. We in the West must support these revolutions. The world now demands a maturity of America that we may not be able to achieve. Martin Luther King, Jr. 4 April 1967. Since I am a preacher by trade, I suppose it is not surprising that I have seven major reasons for bringing Vietnam into the field of my moral vision. 800-989-8255. Screenshots are considered by the King Estate a violation of this notice. The film is the second episode of Tavis Smiley Reports. Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence . . Meanwhile we in the churches and synagogues have a continuing task while we urge our government to disengage itself from a disgraceful commitment. Life often leaves us standing bare, naked and dejected with a lost opportunity. Nearly five years after Kings assassination, American troops withdrew from Vietnam and a peace treaty declared South and North Vietnam independent of each other. 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. Nevertheless, I am in a different position as the president of the United States. Now they languish under our bombs and consider us not their fellow Vietnamese the real enemy. King linked his anti-war and civil rights work in speeches throughout the country, where he described the three problems he saw plaguing the nation: racism, poverty, and the war in Vietnam. 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. If Americas soul becomes totally poisoned, part of the autopsy must read Vietnam. I join with you in this meeting because I am in deepest agreement with the aims and work of the organization which has brought us together: Clergy and Laymen Concerned about Vietnam. King to Weigh Civil Disobedience If War Intensifies, New York Times, 2 April 1967. 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. Have they forgotten that my ministry is in obedience to the one who loved his enemies so fully that he died for them? One of his great advisers and great admirers, Stanley Levison, who was always with Dr. King in his corner, was against Martin giving this speech. 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. Check your local listings. I must cry out when I see war escalated at any point (Opposes Vietnam War). Beyond Vietnam2 in that . Mr. SMILEY: Neal, thank you for the opportunity. But Martin understood very clearly that what we ought to be doing at home is being - we are being distracted, rather, by our engagement around the world. 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. On April 4, 1967 Martin Luther King Jr. wrote a speech named, "Beyond Vietnam- A Time to Break Silence" addressing the Vietnam War. 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. Arent you hurting the cause of your people, they ask? %PDF-1.3 % 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. 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. Estate of Martin Luther King, Jr., Inc. v. CBS, Inc. Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), African American founding fathers of the United States, Statue of Martin Luther King Jr. (Pueblo, Colorado), Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial, San Francisco. What of the National Liberation Front that strangely anonymous group we call VC or Communists? In the 1950s and 1960s, his words led the Civil Rights Movement and helped change society. 5. [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". 0000009964 00000 n Dr. King is trying to get the point across that our country is being unfair to others. Had the president stopped by giving Martin King his just respect - as he did, to his credit - it would have been okay. 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. He supported Johnsons calls for diplomatic negotiations and economic development as the beginnings of such a step. 2/QB(yQVz^*oU.FW A few years ago there was a shining moment. Mr. SMILEY: Yeah. That's my own personal assessment. (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. To speak for them is to explain this lack of confidence in Western words, and especially their distrust of American intentions now. 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. It seemed as if there was a real promise of hope for the poorboth black . In this unfolding conundrum of life and history there is such a thing as being too late. Will our message be that the forces of American life militate against their arrival as full men, and we send our deepest regrets? So, that's all I had to say. 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]. And about a month after that speech was given, I was wounded. We have destroyed their land and their crops. 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. As Arnold Toynbee says : Love is the ultimate force that makes for the saving choice of life and good against the damning choice of death and evil. Undeterred, King, Spock, and Harry Belafonte led 10,000 demonstrators on an anti-war march to the United Nations on 15 April 1967. It was, to your earlier point, the most controversial speech he ever gave. Check your local listings. Let's get Howard(ph) on the line. 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. "[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. No, Howard, I thank you for your phone call. What liberators? We must speak for them and raise the questions they cannot raise. 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. Others, including James Bevel, King's partner and strategist in the Civil Rights Movement, called it King's most important speech. capitalism, and the Vietnam War. CONAN: And the place - choice of place is very interesting too. The march was organized by the Spring Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam and initiated by its chairman, James Bevel. [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. Mr. SMILEY: We - let me just tell you this. "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. 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. 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. King Leads Chicago Peace Rally, New York Times, 26 March 1967. It was written by activist and historian Vincent Harding. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s 1967 speech in New York. The Institute cannot give permission to use or reproduce any of the writings, statements, or images of Martin Luther King, Jr. At the heart of their concerns this query has often loomed large and loud: Why are you speaking about war, Dr. King? This is an excellent Common Core-aligned primary source from Martin Luther King speaking about his stance on the Vietnam War. "It basically ruins their relationship," says Smiley. He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love. A Comparative Study of Martin Luther King Jr & Malcolm X. by. 0000017817 00000 n 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. Carson and Holloran, 1998. The Vietnamese people proclaimed their own independence in 1945 after a combined French and Japanese occupation, and before the Communist revolution in China. Perhaps only his sense of humor and of irony can save him when he hears the most powerful nation of the world speaking of aggression as it drops thousands of bombs on a poor weak nation more than eight thousand miles away from its shores. King, Remaining Awake Through a Great Revolution, in A Knock at Midnight, ed. But they asked and rightly so what about Vietnam? Sorry, I'm a little bit emotional here. 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. [12] 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). ", After King delivered the speech, Smiley reports, "168 major newspapers the next day denounced him." 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. That's what I feel. It makes for an excellent teaching tool for a unit on the Civil Rights Movement, Cold War and Vietnam, or as a bridge to combine the two! Martin Luther King Jr.'s "Beyond Vietnam" was a powerful and angry speech that raged against the war. Of course, he's assassinated in Memphis a year to the day later after giving this speech. NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. Or will there be another message, of longing, of hope, of solidarity with their yearnings, of commitment to their cause, whatever the cost? 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. It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring. Somehow this madness must cease. Communism will never be defeated by the use of atomic bombs or nuclear weapons. So I was increasingly compelled to see the war as an enemy of the poor and to attack it as such. 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. 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. We must find new ways to speak for peace in Vietnam and justice throughout the developing world a world that borders on our doors. Such thoughts take us beyond Vietnam, but not beyond our calling as sons of the living God. JwNt YHiA:{p . We're talking with Tavis Smiley. 0000010534 00000 n Surely we must understand their feelings even if we do not condone their actions. 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. They wander into the towns and see thousands of the children, homeless, without clothes, running in packs on the streets like animals. President Obama, this is one campaign promise that he has kept. He was stabbed at one time. Because, to your point now, one, I want people to go online and read the speech so you can see the text for yourself. "[22] 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. We must rapidly begin the shift from a thing-oriented society to a person-oriented society. I have not urged a mechanical fusion of the civil rights and peace movements. Exactly one year before his assassination, on April 4, 1967, Rev. In that address, he articulated his reasons for his opposition to the Southeast Asian conflict. Martin Luther King, Jr. utilizes figurative to emphasize the inhumanity and immorality of the war. They must see Americans as strange liberators. It includes a portion of his speech. The peasants may well wonder if we plan to build our new Vietnam on such grounds as these? One of the things, I hope, Neal, will happen here is that when people get a chance to see the special, they will be moved - I think they will be - to Google or Bing, whatever search engine you use, to go online, because the speech is so readily available, Neal, as you know. Robert B. Semple, Jr., Dr. 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. 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 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. Why are you joining the voices of dissent? 0000011068 00000 n Soon we would be paying almost the full costs of this tragic attempt at recolonization. And thirdly, I think the main point here in this MLK "Beyond Vietnam" speech is that there is another way. It was a tactical mistake. "This was a huge, huge speech," he continues, "that got Martin King in more trouble than anything he had ever seen or done. Moreover I would encourage all ministers of draft age to give up their ministerial exemptions and seek status as conscientious objectors. I could not be silent in the face of such cruel manipulation of the poor. Hundreds of folks listened outside on loudspeakers. But they chose Riverside because King was going to be speaking some days later at a huge rally and march in New York City, and they knew that that rally was going to bring out a different kind of element, a more controversial element.