0000004855 00000 n 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. Mr. SMILEY: And therein lies the rub. 0000001427 00000 n And King had preached at this church any number of times before, of course. Due to the Vietnam War is that plenty of individuals, both Americans and Vietnamese were killed. 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. Others, including James Bevel, King's partner and strategist in the Civil Rights Movement, called it King's most important speech. Shall we say the odds are too great? Mr. SMILEY: Neal, thank you for the opportunity. He did say he was going to increase troop levels in Afghanistan, so he's kept that promise. 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. Martin Luther King Jr. was a social activist that led the Civil Rights Movement, and other movements until his assassination in 1968. It includes a portion of his speech. 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. PBS talk show. V)U5v\@apkk;#WF. King Scores Poverty). His speech appears below. Communism will never be defeated by the use of atomic bombs or nuclear weapons. Cypress Hall D, 466 Via Ortega, Stanford, CA 94305-4146 On April 15, 1967, King participated and spoke at an anti-war march from Manhattan's Central Park to the United Nations. Q%F70%iR! 0000002025 00000 n This is TALK OF THE NATION from NPR News in Washington. 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. 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. I speak for the poor of America who are paying the double price of smashed hopes at home and death and corruption in Vietnam. So practically everybody was opposed to him giving this speech. King to Weigh Civil Disobedience). 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). And I think most Americans know the "I Have A Dream" speech. Set a date that we will remove all foreign troops from Vietnam in accordance with the 1954 Geneva agreement. 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. Nearly five years after Kings assassination, American troops withdrew from Vietnam and a peace treaty declared South and North Vietnam independent of each other. [citation needed]. But it ends up being the most controversial speech. But most Americans, I think, do not know this speech, "Beyond Vietnam.". Legendary civil rights leader Rev. It was a wonderful, I think, place to give the speech in the sense that it's pretty cavernous. We have destroyed their two most cherished institutions: the family and the village. 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. Attachment 2: Definitions Attachment 3: King Opposed Vietnam War; We Must Oppose US War in Iraq. It was a tactical mistake. Now they languish under our bombs and consider us not their fellow Vietnamese the real enemy. When we ask why they do not leap to negotiate, these things must be remembered. In so many words, powerful interests told him: "Mind your own business.". Although the peace community lauded Kings willingness to take a public stand against the war in Vietnam, many within the civil rights movement further distanced themselves from his stance. Nevertheless, I am in a different position as the president of the United States. We must with positive action seek to remove those conditions of poverty, insecurity and injustice which are the fertile soil in which the seed of communism grows and develops. 0000006536 00000 n 0000001645 00000 n 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. Such thoughts take us beyond Vietnam, but not beyond our calling as sons of the living God. 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 . Martin Luther King Jr. Dr. King at Ebenezer Church. We encouraged them with our huge financial and military supplies to continue the war even after they had lost the will. A few years ago there was a shining moment in that struggle. 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. Therefore the first hope in our inventory must be the hope that love is going to have the last word.. 0000005717 00000 n 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. That's at npr.org, click on TALK OF THE NATION. And we are spending money for a war abroad that ought to be spent for the war on poverty here at home. Ken Rudin joins guest host Rebecca Roberts. CONAN: "MLK: A Call to Conscience" premieres on PBS tomorrow night. Mr. SMILEY: That's right. 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. We must not call everyone a Communist or an appeaser who advocates the seating of Red China in the United Nations and who recognizes that hate and hysteria are not the final answers to the problem of these turbulent days. So they go primarily women and children and the aged. 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. 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. In that address, he articulated his reasons for his opposition to the Southeast Asian conflict. 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. (1997). This is an excellent Common Core-aligned primary source from Martin Luther King speaking about his stance on the Vietnam War. 5. All Rights Reserved. 0000040748 00000 n 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. 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. We are at the moment when our lives must be placed on the line if our nation is to survive its own folly. It is curious that the Americans, who calculate so carefully on the possibilities of military victory, do not realize that in the process they are incurring deep psychological and political defeat. CONAN: Well, take us back to 1967. Shall we tell them the struggle is too hard? 0000002694 00000 n King had read Marx while at Morehouse, but while he rejected "traditional capitalism", he also rejected communism because of its "materialistic interpretation of history" that denied religion, its "ethical relativism", and its "political totalitarianism. "[9] He stated that North Vietnam "did not begin to send in any large number of supplies or men until American forces had arrived in the tens of thousands", and accused the U.S. of having killed a million Vietnamese, "mostly children. 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. What liberators? 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. CONAN: Indeed. These are the times for real choices and not false ones. Declare a unilateral cease-fire in the hope that such action will create the atmosphere for negotiation. [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. We must be prepared to match actions with words by seeking out every creative means of protest possible. 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. True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar; it is not haphazard and superficial. 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. *];\n~~/iQ|h Q 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). I have not urged a mechanical fusion of the civil rights and peace movements. His tireless work advocating for the end of. We have supported the enemies of the peasants of Saigon. That's my own personal assessment. Mr. SMILEY: Well, I think the question is whether or not - I hear your point, Neal, and I take it. Fifty years ago in 1967, Martin Luther King, Jr.. But two, to the audio, there are only less than 10 minutes of this speech that got covered. Carson and Shepard, 2001. CONAN: Walt, thank you. 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. This is the message of the great Buddhist leaders of Vietnam. The situation is one in which we must be ready to turn sharply from our present ways. The Washington Post says he has done a discredit to himself, to his people, to his country. His speech appears below. Copy of full text of the "Beyond Vietnam" speech. Soon we would be paying almost the full costs of this tragic attempt at recolonization. PDF. What do they think of our condoning the violence which led to their own taking up of arms? Their questions are frighteningly relevant. Mr. SMILEY: We - let me just tell you this. Those pictures turned Dr. King's stomach. These are days which demand wise restraint and calm reasonableness. He was stabbed at one time. 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. Martin Luther King's Beyond Vietnam Speech is in many ways even more relevant today than in 1967. . [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. In this speech, he opposes violence and militarism, particularly the war in Vietnam. 0000011739 00000 n On 4 April 1967 Martin Luther King, Jr., delivered his seminal speech at Riverside Church condemning the Vietnam War. This kind of positive revolution of values is our best defense against communism. 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. There were experiments, hopes, new beginnings. 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! Let's get Howard(ph) on the line. 0000002964 00000 n 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. I say we must enter the struggle, but I wish to go on now to say something even more disturbing. CONAN: Indeed, it was Oslo. They must see Americans as strange liberators. Of course, he's assassinated in Memphis a year to the day later after giving this speech. 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. 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. The authoritative record of NPRs programming is the audio record. 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. 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. 0000009985 00000 n To speak for them is to explain this lack of confidence in Western words, and especially their distrust of American intentions now. Martin Luther King Jr.'s "Beyond Vietnam" was a powerful and angry speech that raged against the war. [12] . [citation needed]. 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. 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. This oft misunderstood and misinterpreted conceptso readily dismissed by the Nietzsches of the world as a weak and cowardly forcehas now become an absolute necessity for the survival of man. hide caption. And about a month after that speech was given, I was wounded. 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. With this powerful commitment we shall boldly challenge the status quo and unjust mores and thereby speed the day when every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall be made straight and the rough places plain.. Procrastination is still the thief of time. He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love. 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. 0000023610 00000 n Hb```f``; 6Pco;{Q. 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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. Smiley spoke with both scholars and friends of King, including Cornel West, Vincent Harding and Susannah Heschel. And that's just the Times and the Post. They know they must move or be destroyed by our bombs. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, for example, issued a statement against merging the civil rights and peace movements. 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. He had fallen off already the list, as you mentioned, had already fallen off the list of the most admired Americans as tallied by Gallup every year. This has driven many to feel that only Marxism has the revolutionary spirit. I speak as a citizen of the world, for the world as it stands aghast at the path we have taken. 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. Martin Luther King Jr. held his acceptance speech in the auditorium of the University of Oslo on 10 December 1964. He supported Johnsons calls for diplomatic negotiations and economic development as the beginnings of such a step. [29], Excerpts from this speech are used in the songs "Together" and "Spirit" by Nordic Giants. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. gave a speech opposing the Vietnam War in April 1967. MARTIN LUTHER KING JR.: I speak as a child of God and brother to the suffering poor of Vietnam. On April 4, 1967 Martin Luther King Jr. wrote a speech named, "Beyond Vietnam- A Time to Break Silence" addressing the Vietnam War. Smiley continues, "it was the most controversial speech he ever gave. For nine years following 1945 we denied the people of Vietnam the right of independence. 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. [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. Surely we must understand their feelings even if we do not condone their actions. 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. So all that we have is less than 10 minutes of video of the speech. At the time, civil rights leaders publicly condemned him for it. If you remember the speech, tell us what it meant at that time, and does the principle of nonviolence apply in the age of al-Qaida? Sermons and speeches of Martin Luther King Jr. "Vincent Harding dies at 82; historian wrote controversial King speech", "Vincent Harding, author of Martin Luther King Jr.'s antiwar speech, dies", "The Rev. PBS talk show host Tavis Smiley's new documentary, MLK: A Call to Conscience explores King's speech. 2. 0000011437 00000 n Mr. TAVIS SMILEY (Host, "The Tavis Smiley Show"): Neal, always an honor to be on with you. So, too, with Hanoi. Martin Luther King: Beyond Vietnam and Remaining Awake Through a Great Revolution, 90th Cong., 2d sess., Congressional Record 114 (9 April 1968): 93919397.