Hundreds of folks listened outside on loudspeakers. 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. But it ends up being the most controversial speech. 0000010534 00000 n And about a month after that speech was given, I was wounded. 0000005717 00000 n Smiley continues, "it was the most controversial speech he ever gave. The Riverside Church donated largely with Rockefeller money. What liberators? 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. We will be marching for these and a dozen other names and attending rallies without end unless there is a significant and profound change in American life and policy. And so he does in New York City. 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. We may cry out desperately for time to pause in her passage, but time is deaf to every plea and rushes on. 0000002337 00000 n He criticized the Vietnam War and praised Muhammad Ali for being a conscientious objector. 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. [12] Mr. SMILEY: Neal, thank you for the opportunity. 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. There is nothing to keep us from molding a recalcitrant status quo with bruised hands until we have fashioned it into a brotherhood. Excuse me. 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. 0000009964 00000 n HT0WJ3 O$L We must stop now. His speech appears below. If we continue, there will be no doubt in my mind and in the mind of the world that we have no honorable intentions in Vietnam. We most provide the medical aid that is badly needed, making it available in this country if necessary. But the entire speech, of course, thankfully, was recorded on audio. Martin Luther King's Beyond Vietnam Speech is in many ways even more relevant today than in 1967. . The United States Congress was spending more and more on the military and less and less on anti-poverty programs at the same time. 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. 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. dH(*b(jGB@'k1zTR~{dA9|\b. Communism will never be defeated by the use of atomic bombs or nuclear weapons. What must they be thinking when they know that we are aware of their control of major sections of Vietnam and yet we appear ready to allow national elections in which this highly organized political parallel government will have no part? 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. CONAN: Oh, the audio is terrible, though. Now let us rededicate ourselves to the long and bitter but beautifulstruggle for a new world. This is an excellent Common Core-aligned primary source from Martin Luther King speaking about his stance on the Vietnam War. It seemed as if there was a real promise of hope for the poorboth black . At the time, civil rights leaders publicly condemned him for it. Of course, again, that philosophy, when the papers got a hold of him the next day, that strategy didn't work so well. Those pictures turned Dr. King's stomach. And King had preached at this church any number of times before, of course. So, too, with Hanoi. But Carson makes a powerful point in the special that you just identified, about whether or not Martin King himself would be welcome in some of these mega-churches, at certain political gatherings. For those who ask the question, Arent you a civil rights leader? and thereby mean to exclude me from the movement for peace, I have this further answer. I speak for the poor of America who are paying the double price of smashed hopes at home and death and corruption in Vietnam. This speech is not addressed to Hanoi or to the National Liberation Front. Smiley spoke with both scholars and friends of King, including Cornel West, Vincent Harding and Susannah Heschel. For nine years we vigorously supported the French in their abortive effort to recolonize Vietnam. But certainly one of the greatest orators of our time. But instead there came the United States, determined that Ho should not unify the temporarily divided nation, and the peasants watched again as we supported one of the most vicious modern dictators our chosen man, Premier Diem. 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. So practically everybody was opposed to him giving this speech. He would no longer be respected. Thanks, as always for your time. 159. Martin Luther King, who was already beginning to lose some of his influence, nevertheless made a huge challenge to the establishment. It includes a portion of his speech. 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. 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. 0000003415 00000 n 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. They brought in extra chairs. Mr. SMILEY: Yeah. 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. 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. hide caption. 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. 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). Well, it was taken in that context, anyway. 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. And as I ponder the madness of Vietnam and search within myself for ways to understand and respond to compassion my mind goes constantly to the people of that peninsula. In this speech, he opposes violence and militarism, particularly the war in Vietnam. They wander into the hospitals, with at least twenty casualties from American firepower for one Vietcong-inflicted injury. That's the problem with it. This speech was enormously controversial. Is our nation planning to build on political myth again and then shore it up with the power of new violence? How are you, sir? 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. We must find new ways to speak for peace in Vietnam and justice throughout the developing world a world that borders on our doors. The question is, is it a war of necessity or a war of choice at this point? 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. 0000017817 00000 n 0000001700 00000 n "The press is being stacked against me", King said,[13] Grossfield, Stan. CONAN: Howard, thanks very much for the call. 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 . 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. [citation needed]. Take immediate steps to prevent other battlegrounds in Southeast Asia by curtailing our military buildup in Thailand and our interference in Laos. I speak for those whose land is being laid waste, whose homes are being destroyed, whose culture is being subverted. Will our message be that the forces of American life militate against their arrival as full men, and we send our deepest regrets? 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. In 1967, in the shadows of Columbia, Dr. King shifted the world again. So they go primarily women and children and the aged. And that's the issue that King was raising. 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). 4. 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. 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. 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? The film is the second episode of Tavis Smiley Reports. 0000011739 00000 n 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. I have not urged a mechanical fusion of the civil rights and peace movements. HOWARD: How are you doing, Tavis? What then can I say to the Vietcong or to Castro or to Mao as a faithful minister of this one? 800-989-8255, email us talk@npr.org. ", After King delivered the speech, Smiley reports, "168 major newspapers the next day denounced him." Please contact Intellectual Properties Management (IPM), the exclusive licensor of the Estate of Martin Luther King, Jr., Inc. atlicensing@i-p-m.comor 404 526-8968. 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. The New York Times editorial suggested that conflating the civil rights movement with the Anti-war movement was an oversimplification that did justice to neither, stating that "linking these hard, complex problems will lead not to solutions but to deeper confusion." We have destroyed their two most cherished institutions: the family and the village. 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? The New York Times calls it wasteful and self-defeating. 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. Now there is little left to build onsave bitterness. PDF. The Institute cannot give permission to use or reproduce any of the writings, statements, or images of Martin Luther King, Jr. Though he avoided condemning the war outright, at the August 1965 annual Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) convention King called for a halt to bombing in North Vietnam, urged that the United Nations be empowered to mediate the conflict, and told the crowd that what is required is a small first step that may establish a new spirit of mutual confidence a step capable of breaking the cycle of mistrust, violence and war (King, 12 August 1965). In that address, he articulated his reasons for his opposition to the Southeast Asian conflict. Email us: talk@npr.org. 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. We must move past indecision to action. 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. P: (650) 723-2092 | F: (650) 723-2093 | kinginstitute@stanford.edu| Campus Map. 0000007566 00000 n [27] Thich Nhat Hanh, who publicly held a news conference in Chicago with King in 1966, was acknowledged for urging King to oppose the Vietnam War. King Leads Chicago Peace Rally, New York Times, 26 March 1967. It was, to your earlier point, the most controversial speech he ever gave. I want to thank you, as I know listeners do as well, for your service to this country. 2. ) 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 0000004855 00000 n It was the speech he labored over the most. capitalism, and the Vietnam War. Because, to your point now, one, I want people to go online and read the speech so you can see the text for yourself. 0000001739 00000 n 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). 0000001616 00000 n 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. The great initiative in this war is ours. PBS talk show host Tavis Smiley's new documentary, MLK: A Call to Conscience explores King's speech. Martin Luther King, Jr. utilizes figurative to emphasize the inhumanity and immorality of the war. He turned that into a great speech when he got out of the hospital. We must speak for them and raise the questions they cannot raise. Answering press questions after addressing a Howard University audience on 2 March 1965, King asserted that the war in Vietnam was accomplishing nothing and called for a negotiated settlement (Schuette, King Preaches on Non-Violence). The Reverend Martin Luther King Jr ., head of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, delivers a speech entitled "Beyond Vietnam" in front of 3,000 people at Riverside Church in. 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. 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. But for those who presently choose but one, I would hope they will finally come to see the moral roots common to both. You're listening to TALK OF THE NATION from NPR News. 0000013408 00000 n 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. Moreover I would encourage all ministers of draft age to give up their ministerial exemptions and seek status as conscientious objectors. Mr. SMILEY: Yeah. If it is, let us trace its movement well and pray that our own inner being may be sensitive to its guidance, for we are deeply in need of a new way beyond the darkness that seems so close around us.
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