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. We have destroyed their land and their crops. 39 0 obj << /Linearized 1 /O 44 /H [ 1739 286 ] /L 149455 /E 105346 /N 8 /T 148557 >> endobj xref 39 54 0000000016 00000 n Mr. SMILEY: Indeed, he did. A few years ago there was a shining moment in that struggle. I say we must enter the struggle, but I wish to go on now to say something even more disturbing. Undeterred, King, Spock, and Harry Belafonte led 10,000 demonstrators on an anti-war march to the United Nations on 15 April 1967. [18] He guarded his language in public to avoid being linked to communism by his enemies, but in private he sometimes spoke of his support for democratic socialism. Surely we must see that our own computerized plans of destruction simply dwarf their greatest acts. What of the National Liberation Front that strangely anonymous group we call VC or Communists? [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. 0000011739 00000 n In so many words, powerful interests told him: "Mind your own business.". 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. Perhaps a new spirit is rising among us. There is at the outset a very obvious and almost facile connection between the war in Vietnam and the struggle I, and others, have been waging in America. Martin Luther King Jr.'s "Beyond Vietnam" was a powerful and angry speech that raged against the 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. So it is that those of us who are yet determined that America will be are led down the path of protest and dissent, working for the health of our land. We must speak for them and raise the questions they cannot raise. Moreover when the issues at hand seem as perplexed as they often do in the case of this dreadful conflict we are always on the verge of being mesmerized by uncertainty; but we must move on. What then can I say to the Vietcong or to Castro or to Mao as a faithful minister of this one? Du Bois to Coretta Scott King: The Untold History of the Movement to Ban the Bomb. Soon we would be paying almost the full costs of this tragic attempt at recolonization. We have cooperated in the crushing of the nations only non-Communist revolutionary political force the unified Buddhist church. 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. 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. Moreover I would encourage all ministers of draft age to give up their ministerial exemptions and seek status as conscientious objectors. 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. 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. It is with such activity in mind that the words of the late John F. Kennedy come back to haunt us. 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. And thank you for sharing what had to be a difficult story to tell. I am speaking of that force which all of the great religions have seen as the supreme unifying principle of life. Dr. So they go primarily women and children and the aged. A few days later, King made it clear that his peace work was not undertaken as the leader of the SCLC, but as an individual, as a clergyman, as one who is greatly concerned about peace (Dr. 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. Communism will never be defeated by the use of atomic bombs or nuclear weapons. He passed the Voting Rights Act. There are people who have come to see the moral imperative of equality, but who cannot yet see the moral imperative of world brotherhood. This is Howard, which you know me. Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community? 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. Please c, ontact Intellectual Properties Management (IPM), the exclusive licensor of the Estate of Martin Luther King, Jr., Inc. at. They will be concerned about Guatemala and Peru. 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. What do the peasants think as we ally ourselves with the landlords and as we refuse to put any action into our many words concerning land reform? Somehow this madness must cease. 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. Because, to your point now, one, I want people to go online and read the speech so you can see the text for yourself. AFP/AFP/Getty Images Delivered by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. at Manhattan's Riverside Church, April 4, 1967 . James L. Bevel dies at 72; civil rights activist and top lieutenant to King", "Martin Luther King Jr. made our nation uncomfortable", "The Uncompromising Anti-Capitalism of Martin Luther King Jr", "Why Martin Luther King Didn't Run for President", "Thich Nhat Hanh, Zen Master and Political Reformer, Dies at 95", "The Story Of King's 'Beyond Vietnam' Speech", "Dragons, legos, and solitary: Ai Weiwei's transformative Alcatraz exhibition", Full transcript of the speech from Commondreams.org. Peace and civil rights dont mix, they say. CONAN: Oh, the audio is terrible, though. When you read the speech, if you replace the word Vietnam, every time it pops up, with the word Iraq, Afghanistan or Pakistan, you will be - it will blow your mind at how King, where he alive today at 81, could really stand up and give that same speech and just replace, again, Vietnam with Iraq and Afghanistan. [11], King's opposition cost him significant support among white allies, including President Johnson, Billy Graham,[citation needed] union leaders and powerful publishers. 0000013330 00000 n We must move past indecision to action. 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. They question our political goals and they deny the reality of a peace settlement from which they will be excluded. It is not addressed to China or to Russia. (AFP via Getty Images) "Why are you speaking about the war, Dr. King? Therefore, communism is a judgment against our failure to make democracy real and follow through on the revolutions we initiated. HT0WJ3 O$L That's my own personal assessment. 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. President Obama, this is one campaign promise that he has kept. Declare a unilateral cease-fire in the hope that such action will create the atmosphere for negotiation. Even though they quoted the American Declaration of Independence in their own document of freedom, we refused to recognize them. For nine years we vigorously supported the French in their abortive effort to recolonize Vietnam. 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. I'm Neal Conan. 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. These are the times for real choices and not false ones. CONAN: And the place - choice of place is very interesting too. Your donation is fully tax-deductible. And that is precisely what concerned Dr. King so much, that these young boys were being sent halfway around the world to fight a war that was unwinnable, that resources were being used there that should've been used here at home. These are days which demand wise restraint and calm reasonableness. *];\n~~/iQ|h Q Even when pressed by the demands of inner truth, men do not easily assume the task of opposing their governments policy, especially in time of war. 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. 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! 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. At what cost? King, Remaining Awake Through a Great Revolution, in A Knock at Midnight, ed. 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. 16, 1967 in New York. Beyond Vietnam2 in that . Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. ", 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. The recent statement of your executive committee are the sentiments of my own heart and I found myself in full accord when I read its opening lines: A time comes when silence is betrayal. That time has come for us in relation to Vietnam. And let's see if we can get another caller on the line. 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 . Take immediate steps to prevent other battlegrounds in Southeast Asia by curtailing our military buildup in Thailand and our interference in Laos. 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. It tells why American helicopters are being used against guerrillas in Colombia and why American napalm and green beret forces have already been active against rebels in Peru. [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.