0000012541 00000 n He turned that into a great speech when he got out of the hospital. 0000002004 00000 n Nearly five years after Kings assassination, American troops withdrew from Vietnam and a peace treaty declared South and North Vietnam independent of each other. 0000013309 00000 n I must cry out when I see war escalated at any point (Opposes Vietnam War). JwNt YHiA:{p . We must be prepared to match actions with words by seeking out every creative means of protest possible. The Riverside Church donated largely with Rockefeller money. And King gives a great speech out of that hospital called "If I Had Sneezed." Fifty years ago in 1967, Martin Luther King, Jr.. Tavis Smiley joins us today from the Sheryl Flowers Studios in Los Angeles. Somehow this madness must cease. The situation is one in which we must be ready to turn sharply from our present ways. 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. The Washington Post says he has done a discredit to himself, to his people, to his country. That's the problem with it. Beyond Vietnam: The MLK speech that caused an uproar - USA TODAY 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. So all that we have is less than 10 minutes of video of the speech. CONAN: Walt, thank you. His house was bombed. 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 . 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. In that address, he articulated his reasons for his opposition to the Southeast Asian conflict. Martin Luther King, Jr., gave a speech that may have helped put a target on . I want to thank you, as I know listeners do as well, for your service to this country. They see the children selling their sisters to our soldiers, soliciting for their mothers. Accuracy and availability may vary. Mr. SMILEY: Indeed he did, Neal. 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. 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. 0000006515 00000 n Attachment 4: Are We Ready to Listen to Dr. King? 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. 0000047501 00000 n 0000003454 00000 n The Story Of King's 'Beyond Vietnam' Speech : NPR It is with such activity in mind that the words of the late John F. Kennedy come back to haunt us. 0000002247 00000 n Martin Luther King Jr.'s "Beyond Vietnam" was a powerful and angry speech that raged against the war. When he saw those pictures, there's a very famous picture, Neal, that we all know of a Vietnamese girl running naked in the streets who had just been, you know, had been victimized as had her village by these napalm attacks. 3. 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. 0000013408 00000 n $25.00. Smiley spoke with both scholars and friends of King, including Cornel West, Vincent Harding and Susannah Heschel. A few other Americans know, of course, the "Mountaintop" speech given the night before he's assassinated in Memphis. 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. This is an excellent Common Core-aligned primary source from Martin Luther King speaking about his stance on the Vietnam War. Then came the buildup in Vietnam and I watched the program broken and eviscerated as if it were some idle political plaything of a society gone mad on war, and I knew that America would never invest the necessary funds or energies in rehabilitation of its poor so long as adventures like Vietnam continued to draw men and skills and money like some demonic destructive suction tube. 0000005717 00000 n Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Assassination - HISTORY As if the weight of such a commitment to the life and health of America were not enough, another burden of responsibility was placed upon me in 1964; and I cannot forget that the Nobel Prize for Peace was also a commission a commission to work harder than I had ever worked before for the brotherhood of man. This is a calling that takes me beyond national allegiances, but even if it were not present I would yet have to live with the meaning of my commitment to the ministry of Jesus Christ. Therefore the first hope in our inventory must be the hope that love is going to have the last word.. 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. Dr. For nine years following 1945 we denied the people of Vietnam the right of independence. In "People and Peace, not Profits and War," Shirley Chisholm repeats the words "two more years" (42). 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. 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. "MLK: A Call to Conscience" premieres on PBS tomorrow night. For the peasants this new government meant real land reform, one of the most important needs in their lives. It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring. And I can't tell young black men, who are being denied right here in the streets of America, that they should offer themselves up and to sign themselves up to go - to do harm to people around the world who they do not know. Surely we must see that the men we supported pressed them to their violence. 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. That's at npr.org, click on TALK OF THE NATION. 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. Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community? HdTn0+=3hRnm)zK#-t\|Ha)S capitalism, and the Vietnam War. King, Beyond Vietnam, in A Call to Conscience, ed. (2)] Du Bois to Coretta Scott King: The Untold History of the Movement to Ban the Bomb. Martin Luther King Jr. announced his strong opposition to the war in Vietnam, the media attacked him for straying outside of his civil rights mandate. Or will there be another message, of longing, of hope, of solidarity with their yearnings, of commitment to their cause, whatever the cost? Check your local listings. 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. All Rights Reserved. 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. They will be concerned about Thailand and Cambodia. 0000002516 00000 n Copyright 2010 NPR. And thirdly, I think the main point here in this MLK "Beyond Vietnam" speech is that there is another way. The choice is ours, and though we might prefer it otherwise we must choose in this crucial moment of human history. For nine years we vigorously supported the French in their abortive effort to recolonize Vietnam. 0000046786 00000 n I speak as an American to the leaders of my own nation. King spoke strongly against the U.S.'s role in the war, arguing that the U.S. was in Vietnam "to occupy it as an American colony" and calling the U.S. government "the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today. As we all know, Neal, before he died, Robert McNamara, the Defense secretary that had Walt and others over in Vietnam, before he died, of course, announced that he was wrong. 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. How Martin Luther King, Jr.'s multifaceted view on human rights still These are the times for real choices and not false ones. How Did Martin Luther King Jr Use Of Figurative Language War is not the answer. King Leads Chicago Peace Rally, New York Times, 26 March 1967. 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. (1967) Martin Luther King, Jr., "Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence" They wander into the hospitals, with at least twenty casualties from American firepower for one Vietcong-inflicted injury. 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. 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. You're listening to TALK OF THE NATION from NPR News. 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. ", 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. It was the speech he labored over the most. After the French were defeated it looked as if independence and land reform would come again through the Geneva agreements. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. 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. These are days which demand wise restraint and calm reasonableness. dH(*b(jGB@'k1zTR~{dA9|\b. They wander into the towns and see thousands of the children, homeless, without clothes, running in packs on the streets like animals. 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. The True Martin Luther King, Jr. New York: Free Press. How do they judge us when our officials know that their membership is less than twenty-five percent Communist and yet insist on giving them the blanket name? Dr. "The press is being stacked against me", King said,[13] A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death. 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 . As that noble bard of yesterday, James Russell Lowell, eloquently stated: Once to every man and nation Comes the moment to decide, In the strife of truth and falsehood, For the good or evil side; Some great cause, Gods new Messiah, Offring each the bloom or blight, And the choice goes by forever Twixt that darkness and that light. 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. 0000011068 00000 n At what cost? Over the past two years, as I have moved to break the betrayal of my own silences and to speak from the burnings of my own heart, as I have called for radical departures from the destruction of Vietnam, many persons have questioned me about the wisdom of my path. ", After King delivered the speech, Smiley reports, "168 major newspapers the next day denounced him." True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar; it is not haphazard and superficial. Excuse me. King, Remaining Awake Through a Great Revolution, in A Knock at Midnight, ed. (1997). 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. And so I think most Americans, Neal, know the "I Have A Dream" speech. 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. He supported Johnsons calls for diplomatic negotiations and economic development as the beginnings of such a step. But two, to the audio, there are only less than 10 minutes of this speech that got covered. 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 . "[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. 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. 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. Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Vietnam War Speech Analysis A few years ago there was a shining moment in that. His wife, Coretta Scott King, took a more active role in opposing the war, speaking at a rally at the Washington Monument on 27 November 1965 with Benjamin Spock, the renowned pediatrician and anti-war activist, and joined in other demonstrations.
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