martin luther king jr vietnam war speech transcript

Smiley spoke with both scholars and friends of King, including Cornel West, Vincent Harding and Susannah Heschel. They wander into the hospitals, with at least twenty casualties from American firepower for one Vietcong-inflicted injury. What liberators? . Let's get Howard(ph) on the line. That night Dr. King shocked the world and his followers when . PDF. This is the message of the great Buddhist leaders of Vietnam. Perhaps the more difficult but no less necessary task is to speak for those who have been designated as our enemies. The situation is one in which we must be ready to turn sharply from our present ways. 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 0000002427 00000 n And King was prescient on this. 1967 speech delivered by Martin Luther King Jr. 0000006515 00000 n That's my own personal assessment. 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 Beyond Vietnam -- A Time to Break Silence - American Rhetoric Now let us rededicate ourselves to the long and bitter but beautifulstruggle for a new world. 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. MLK Opposed "Poverty, Racism & Militarism" in Speech One Year Before We have cooperated in the crushing of the nations only non-Communist revolutionary political force the unified Buddhist church. 0000006536 00000 n 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. (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. Martin Luther King, Jr. (January 15, 1929 - April 4, 1968) To speak for them is to explain this lack of confidence in Western words, and especially their distrust of American intentions now. And King gives a great speech out of that hospital called "If I Had Sneezed." 0000047501 00000 n 0000007161 00000 n It was, to your earlier point, the most controversial speech he ever gave. King Scores Poverty Budget, New York Times, 16 December 1966. It was a wonderful, I think, place to give the speech in the sense that it's pretty cavernous. MLK: Beyond Vietnam - A Time to Break Silence - YouTube Mr. SMILEY: Yeah, Walt, I thank you for sharing that story as well, for being courageous to tell it, number one. He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love. 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. (1967) Martin Luther King, Jr., "Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence" People And Peace Not Profits And War Rhetorical Devices Not only that, but then-President Lyndon Johnson disinvited King to the White House. I would like to see the fervor of the civil-rights movement imbued into the peace movement to instill it with greater strength. 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. Opposes Vietnam War, New York Times, 11 November 1965. Could we blame them for such thoughts? A genuine revolution of values means in the final analysis that our loyalties must become ecumenical rather than sectional. Recently one of them wrote these words: Each day the war goes on the hatred increases in the heart of the Vietnamese and in the hearts of those of humanitarian instinct. ) 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 Excuse me. Indeed, you play parts of President Obama's speech to the Nobel Committee there in Stockholm where he received the award. "It basically ruins their relationship," says Smiley. At the time, civil rights leaders publicly condemned him for it. I am speaking of that force which all of the great religions have seen as the supreme unifying principle of life. The moving finger writes, and having writ moves on We still have a choice today; nonviolent coexistence or violent co-annihilation. I come to this magnificent house of worship tonight because my conscience leaves me no other choice. Forego a bottle of soda and donate its cost to us for the information you just learned, and feel good about helping to make it available to everyone. 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. He was one of the most important and influential Civil Rights leaders in the 1950s and 1960s. 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. 0000005696 00000 n Even before the French were defeated at Dien Bien Phu, they began to despair of the reckless action, but we did not. 0000003199 00000 n [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. 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. 0000001427 00000 n All Rights Reserved. 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. The choice is ours, and though we might prefer it otherwise we must choose in this crucial moment of human history. 16, 1967 in New York. 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. 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. We have corrupted their women and children and killed their men. 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? It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring. Is it among these voiceless ones? The Institute cannot give permission to use or reproduce any of the writings, statements, or images of Martin Luther King, Jr. Fifty years ago in 1967, Martin Luther King, Jr.. In 1967, in the shadows of Columbia, Dr. King shifted the world again. 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. It was written by activist and historian Vincent Harding. He did say he was going to increase troop levels in Afghanistan, so he's kept that promise. 0000009168 00000 n [citation needed] Content [ edit] 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. The peasants may well wonder if we plan to build our new Vietnam on such grounds as these? 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. 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. 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. In "People and Peace, not Profits and War," Shirley Chisholm repeats the words "two more years" (42). 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. 0000009964 00000 n I Have a Dream | Date, Quotations, & Facts | Britannica The shirtless and barefoot people of the land are rising up as never before. Let's go to Walt(ph). It is with such activity in mind that the words of the late John F. Kennedy come back to haunt us. So he was no longer on that particular list. AFP/AFP/Getty Images In that address, he articulated his reasons for his opposition to the Southeast Asian conflict. King, Remaining Awake Through a Great Revolution, in A Knock at Midnight, ed. Five years ago he said, Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.. 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. Take immediate steps to prevent other battlegrounds in Southeast Asia by curtailing our military buildup in Thailand and our interference in Laos. We have supported the enemies of the peasants of Saigon. Some 250,000 people gathered at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., for the March on Washington. 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. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.: "Beyond Vietnam" - Zinn Education Project 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. 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. Shall we tell them the struggle is too hard? Those pictures turned Dr. King's stomach. 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? 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). 0000002516 00000 n 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. PBS talk show. Why are you joining the voices of dissent? Soon the only solid physical foundations remaining will be found at our military bases and in the concrete of the concentration camps we call fortified hamlets. Smiley continues, "it was the most controversial speech he ever gave. The speech primarily concerns the Memphis sanitation strike.King calls for unity, economic actions, boycotts, and nonviolent protest, while challenging the United States to live . "[10], King also criticized American opposition to North Vietnam's land reforms. Beyond Vietnam: The MLK speech that caused an uproar - USA TODAY 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. 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! Indeed, their questions suggest that they do not know the world in which they live. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information. 2. Because, to your point now, one, I want people to go online and read the speech so you can see the text for yourself. On this Wikipedia the language links are at the top of the page across from the article title. Stanford University, Stanford, California 94305. True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar; it is not haphazard and superficial. The film is the second episode of Tavis Smiley Reports. I've Been to the Mountaintop - Wikipedia 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. Martin Luther King, Jr. utilizes figurative to emphasize the inhumanity and immorality of the war. Then we must make what reparations we can for the damage we have done. 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. hide caption. 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. 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. All the while the people read our leaflets and received regular promises of peace and democracy and land reform. But anyway, where he says, I am mindful of those who spoke at this podium, this spot before me, including Martin Luther King and that I stand on his shoulders as a champion of civil rights. ml.K-x1x*tcSO p[ endstream endobj 62 0 obj 720 endobj 63 0 obj << /Filter /FlateDecode /Length 62 0 R >> stream n/a martin luther king jr. (born michael king january 15, 1929 april 1968) was an american baptist minister and activist, one of the most prominent leaders in . 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. You can also join the conversation at our Web site. So it was a great turnout. 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. Hb```f``; 6Pco;{Q. 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Vietnam War - The Martin Luther King, Jr., Research and Education Institute P: (650) 723-2092 | F: (650) 723-2093 | kinginstitute@stanford.edu| Campus Map. 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. Martin Luther King Jr. held his acceptance speech in the auditorium of the University of Oslo on 10 December 1964. And they are surely right to wonder what kind of new government we plan to help form without them the only party in real touch with the peasants. But they didn't stay for the speech in its entirety. 159. This quote is from a sermon by Dr. King on April 30, 1967 at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, Georgia, drawing from his infamous April 4 sermon at Riverside Church. 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. 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. April 30, 1967: "Why I Am Opposed to the War in Vietnam" Speech For nine years following 1945 we denied the people of Vietnam the right of independence. Of course, he's assassinated in Memphis a year to the day later after giving this speech. PDF A TIME TO BREAK THE SILENCE - nps.gov Every man of humane convictions must decide on the protest that best suits his convictions, but we must all protest. 0000010534 00000 n "[24] King condemned America's "alliance with the landed gentry of Latin America", and said that the U.S. should support "the shirtless and barefoot people" in the Third World rather than suppressing their attempts at revolution. Dr. Martin Luther King's 'Beyond Vietnam' Speech - HistoryNet

martin luther king jr vietnam war speech transcript 2023