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Moreover I would encourage all ministers of draft age to give up their ministerial exemptions and seek status as conscientious objectors. Of course, he's assassinated in Memphis a year to the day later after giving this speech. 20072023 Blackpast.org. "[8] He connected the war with economic injustice, arguing that the country needed serious moral change: A true revolution of values will soon look uneasily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth. 0000003454 00000 n What do they think as we test our latest weapons on them, just as the Germans tested out new medicine and new tortures in the concentration camps of Europe? Instead, we decided to support France in its reconquest of her former colony. 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. Set a date that we will remove all foreign troops from Vietnam in accordance with the 1954 Geneva agreement. I Have a Dream, speech by Martin Luther King, Jr., that was delivered on August 28, 1963, during the March on Washington. 159. I just wanted to say that I was an 18-year-old Marine in Vietnam when the speech was given, and I didn't hear it until three or four years ago. We have destroyed their land and their crops. 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. There is.a very obvious and almost facile connection between the war in Vietnam and the struggle I and others have been waging in America. 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. "It basically ruins their relationship," says Smiley. 0000002784 00000 n Mr. SMILEY: Yeah, Walt, I thank you for sharing that story as well, for being courageous to tell it, number one. Mr. SMILEY: Indeed he did, Neal. 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. P: (650) 723-2092 | F: (650) 723-2093 | kinginstitute@stanford.edu| Campus Map. The New York Times calls it wasteful and self-defeating. 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. 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. 0000009168 00000 n The initiative to stop it must be ours. And that's just the Times and the Post. 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. Exactly one year before his assassination, on April 4, 1967, Rev. I am speaking of that force which all of the great religions have seen as the supreme unifying principle of life. I come to this platform tonight to make a passionate plea to my beloved nation. 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. Your donation is fully tax-deductible. A Comparative Study of Martin Luther King Jr & Malcolm X. by. 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. Opposes Vietnam War, New York Times, 11 November 1965. 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. I feel that Martin Luther King and Muhammad Ali are two of the, you know, greatest Americans we've ever had. 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. Thanks, as always for your time. A true revolution of values will soon look uneasily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth. "[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. We have destroyed their two most cherished institutions: the family and the village. PBS talk show host Tavis Smiley's new documentary, MLK: A Call to Conscience explores King's speech. On 4 April 1967 Martin Luther King, Jr., delivered his seminal speech at Riverside Church condemning the Vietnam War. 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. Such thoughts take us beyond Vietnam, but not beyond our calling as sons of the living God. A few years ago there was a shining moment in that struggle. They know they must move or be destroyed by our bombs. 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? We may cry out desperately for time to pause in her passage, but time is deaf to every plea and rushes on. 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). We are at the moment when our lives must be placed on the line if our nation is to survive its own folly. He passed the Voting Rights Act. Screenshots are considered by the King Estate a violation of this notice. I'm Neal Conan. Before the end of the war we were meeting eighty percent of the French war costs. The Vietnamese people proclaimed their own independence in 1945 after a combined French and Japanese occupation, and before the Communist revolution in China. 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. 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. We most provide the medical aid that is badly needed, making it available in this country if necessary. Love is somehow the key that unlocks the door which leads to ultimate reality. 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. Let me say this right quick: The comparisons between what King was addressing then about militarism, poverty and racism sound familiar 45 years later. It was written by activist and historian Vincent Harding. War is not the answer. "[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. 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. CONAN: We (unintelligible) to see it. In "People and Peace, not Profits and War," Shirley Chisholm repeats the words "two more years" (42). 0000004855 00000 n 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 << /I << /Title (A)>> /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 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. 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. Legendary civil rights leader Rev. Stanford University, Stanford, California 94305. 0000003415 00000 n The question is, is it a war of necessity or a war of choice at this point? This call for a world-wide fellowship that lifts neighborly concern beyond ones tribe, race, class and nation is in reality a call for an all-embracing and unconditional love for all men. 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. Paul A. Schuette, King Preaches on Non-Violence at Police-Guarded Howard Hall, Washington Post, 3 March 1965. Please c, ontact Intellectual Properties Management (IPM), the exclusive licensor of the Estate of Martin Luther King, Jr., Inc. at. HT0WJ3 O$L The peasants watched as all this was presided over by U.S. influence and then by increasing numbers of U.S. troops who came to help quell the insurgency that Diems methods had aroused. [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. Let's go to Walt(ph). 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. 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. (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. "This was a huge, huge speech," he continues, "that got Martin King in more trouble than anything he had ever seen or done. In order to atone for our sins and errors in Vietnam, we should take the initiative in bringing a halt to this tragic war. We must speak with all the humility that is appropriate to our limited vision, but we must speak. So you got a Nobel laureate named King, a war president with a Nobel Prize named Obama, for all that we have done over the last two years to wed King and Obama together on T- shirts and everywhere else, were King alive today at 81, he and Obama would have a tension point, Neal, on this issue. 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. We can no longer afford to worship the god of hate or bow before the altar of retaliation. . Carson and Holloran, 1998. We must speak for them and raise the questions they cannot raise. Twin towers were planned from Afghanistan. [12] Mr. SMILEY: Well, I think the question is whether or not - I hear your point, Neal, and I take it. While his legacy is commonly remembered by his famous "I Have A Dream" speech, we've sourced four powerful, lesser-known speeches from Dr. King to listen to and commemorate . It was the speech he labored over the most. Therefore, communism is a judgment against our failure to make democracy real and follow through on the revolutions we initiated. Also it must be clear that the leaders of Hanoi considered the presence of American troops in support of the Diem regime to have been the initial military breach of the Geneva agreements concerning foreign troops, and they remind us that they did not begin to send in any large number of supplies or men until American forces had moved into the tens of thousands. True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar; it is not haphazard and superficial. Martin built his speech that night, Neal, around three major points: around increasing militarism, around escalating poverty and around the issue of racism. But for those who presently choose but one, I would hope they will finally come to see the moral roots common to both. This is an excellent Common Core-aligned primary source from Martin Luther King speaking about his stance on the Vietnam War. There are people who have come to see the moral imperative of equality, but who cannot yet see the moral imperative of world brotherhood. The image of America will never again be the image of revolution, freedom and democracy, but the image of violence and militarism.. dH(*b(jGB@'k1zTR~{dA9|\b. After the French were defeated it looked as if independence and land reform would come again through the Geneva agreements. And King had preached at this church any number of times before, of course. Surely we must see that the men we supported pressed them to their violence. The authoritative record of NPRs programming is the audio record. 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. For nine years following 1945 we denied the people of Vietnam the right of independence. 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. Surely we must see that our own computerized plans of destruction simply dwarf their greatest acts. Howard's calling us from South Bend. Let us not join those who shout war and through their misguided passions urge the United States to relinquish its participation in the United Nations. 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! Nevertheless, I am in a different position as the president of the United States. We must be prepared to match actions with words by seeking out every creative means of protest possible. ) 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 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. Due to the Vietnam War is that plenty of individuals, both Americans and Vietnamese were killed. 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. He was one of the most important and influential Civil Rights leaders in the 1950s and 1960s. I speak for those whose land is being laid waste, whose homes are being destroyed, whose. 0000007566 00000 n The Washington Post says he has done a discredit to himself, to his people, to his country. We must move past indecision to action. Accuracy and availability may vary. 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? Email us: talk@npr.org. With righteous indignation, it will look across the seas and see individual capitalists of the West investing huge sums of money in Asia, Africa and South America, only to take the profits out with no concern for the social betterment of the countries, and say: This is not just. It will look at our alliance with the landed gentry of Latin America and say: This is not just. The Western arrogance of feeling that it has everything to teach others and nothing to learn from them is not just. I want to thank you, as I know listeners do as well, for your service to this country. Of course, again, that philosophy, when the papers got a hold of him the next day, that strategy didn't work so well. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. 0000011739 00000 n Meanwhile we in the churches and synagogues have a continuing task while we urge our government to disengage itself from a disgraceful commitment. That Vietnam was a mistake. Had the president stopped by giving Martin King his just respect - as he did, to his credit - it would have been okay.