A Call to Conscience: The Landmark Speeches of Martin Luther King, Jr. The authoritative record of NPRs programming is the audio record. And Walt's with us from Cortez in Colorado. If we do not stop our war against the people of Vietnam immediately the world will be left with no other alternative than to see this as some horribly clumsy and deadly game we have decided to play. And I think most Americans know the "I Have A Dream" speech. 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. 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. When we ask why they do not leap to negotiate, these things must be remembered. These are the times for real choices and not false ones. 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. 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? 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 . Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence . I Have a Dream | Date, Quotations, & Facts | Britannica "[14] Every man of humane convictions must decide on the protest that best suits his convictions, but we must all protest. I have not urged a mechanical fusion of the civil rights and peace movements. Where are the roots of the independent Vietnam we claim to be building? 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? 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. 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. So all that we have is less than 10 minutes of video of the speech. And so the question was, Martin, why would you antagonize the president who has been our friend? The world now demands a maturity of America that we may not be able to achieve. To me the relationship of this ministry to the making of peace is so obvious that I sometimes marvel at those who ask me why I am speaking against the war. On this Wikipedia the language links are at the top of the page across from the article title. Dr. King And Malcolm X Teaching Resources | TPT But the entire speech, of course, thankfully, was recorded on audio. King to Weigh Civil Disobedience If War Intensifies, New York Times, 2 April 1967. We're talking with Tavis Smiley. 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. Martin Luther King Beyond Vietnam Speech Full Text and Video Though the cause of evil prosper, Yet tis truth alone is strong; Though her portion be the scaffold, And upon the throne be wrong: Yet that scaffold sways the future, And behind the dim unknown, Standeth God within the shadow Keeping watch above his own. So we watch them in brutal solidarity burning the huts of a poor village, but we realize that they would never live on the same block in Detroit. PDF Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence ~ MLK Speech 1967 - CRM Vet 0000046786 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. 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. Check your local listings. Martin Luther King Jr.'s "Beyond Vietnam" was a powerful and angry speech that raged against the war. In order to atone for our sins and errors in Vietnam, we should take the initiative in bringing a halt to this tragic war. The message directly challenged the president who'd taken great political risks to support civil rights legislation and also challenged many of his colleagues in the movement who've called it a tactical mistake. This is the message of the great Buddhist leaders of Vietnam. 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. CONAN: Walt, thank you. This need to maintain social stability for our investments accounts for the counter-revolutionary action of American forces in Guatemala. But they asked and rightly so what about Vietnam? And he said these three issues of racism and poverty and militarism are going to destroy this nation. Less than two weeks after leading his first Vietnam demonstration, on 4 April 1967, King made his best known and most comprehensive statement against the war. Before long they must know that their government has sent them into a struggle among Vietnamese, and the more sophisticated surely realize that we are on the side of the wealthy and the secure while we create hell for the poor. Beyond the calling of race or nation or creed is this vocation of sonship and brotherhood, and because I believe that the Father is deeply concerned especially for his suffering and helpless and outcast children, I come tonight to speak for them. In the north, where our bombs now pummel the land, and our mines endanger the waterways, we are met by a deep but understandable mistrust. The Americans are forcing even their friends into becoming their enemies. At the U.N. King also brought up issues of civil rights and the draft. People And Peace Not Profits And War Rhetorical Devices 0000006536 00000 n 0000023610 00000 n So far we may have killed a million of them mostly children. 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. 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? We have corrupted their women and children and killed their men. While King was personally opposed to the war, he was concerned that publicly criticizing U.S. foreign policy would damage his relationship with President Lyndon B. Johnson, who had been instrumental in passing civil rights legislation and who had declared in April 1965 that he was willing to negotiate a diplomatic end to the war in Vietnam. Copy of full text of the "Beyond Vietnam" speech. Seeking to reduce the potential backlash by framing his speech within the context of religious objection to war, King addressed a crowd of 3,000 people at Riverside Church in New York City. In 1957 when a group of us formed the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, we chose as our motto: To save the soul of America. We were convinced that we could not limit our vision to certain rights for black people, but instead affirmed the conviction that America would never be free or saved from itself unless the descendants of its slaves were loosed completely from the shackles they still wear. At the time, civil rights leaders publicly condemned him for it. He would no longer be respected. 0000001427 00000 n Take immediate steps to prevent other battlegrounds in Southeast Asia by curtailing our military buildup in Thailand and our interference in Laos. 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. Others, including James Bevel, King's partner and strategist in the Civil Rights Movement, called it King's most important speech. 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. NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This speech was written and basically read word for word so that they could have a copy to give to mainstream newspapers across the country for their consideration, because King did not want to be misquoted Mr. SMILEY: or misunderstood, although that didn't work. 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. Our only hope today lies in our ability to recapture the revolutionary spirit and go out into a sometimes hostile world declaring eternal hostility to poverty, racism, and militarism. I'm Neal Conan. King Leads Chicago Peace Rally, New York Times, 26 March 1967. Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Vietnam War Speech Analysis PDF A TIME TO BREAK THE SILENCE - nps.gov Now let us begin. Screenshots are considered by the King Estate a violation of this notice. On April 4, 1967 Martin Luther King Jr. wrote a speech named, "Beyond Vietnam- A Time to Break Silence" addressing the Vietnam War. Indeed, their questions suggest that they do not know the world in which they live. But for those who presently choose but one, I would hope they will finally come to see the moral roots common to both. PBS talk show. They will be concerned about Thailand and Cambodia. I want to thank you, as I know listeners do as well, for your service to this country. Martin Luther King Jr. speaks out against the war - HISTORY Let's get Howard(ph) on the line. Indeed, you play parts of President Obama's speech to the Nobel Committee there in Stockholm where he received the award. And number two, at what cost? Grossfield, Stan. Excuse me. He rarely gave speeches from a text. And let's see if we can get another caller on the line. CONAN: Indeed. 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. And King gives a great speech out of that hospital called "If I Had Sneezed." In Martin Luther King Jr.'s Vietnam speech, lines 413-416, he repeats the phrase "this is not just" (161). They will be concerned about Mozambique and South Africa. 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. 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. Even before the French were defeated at Dien Bien Phu, they began to despair of the reckless action, but we did not. V)U5v\@apkk;#WF. [citation needed]. 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. Martin Luther King Jr. Assassination - HISTORY 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. Sermons and speeches of Martin Luther King Jr. "Vincent Harding dies at 82; historian wrote controversial King speech", "Vincent Harding, author of Martin Luther King Jr.'s antiwar speech, dies", "The Rev. It is curious that the Americans, who calculate so carefully on the possibilities of military victory, do not realize that in the process they are incurring deep psychological and political defeat. 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 . 0000002247 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 That's the problem with it. So he was no longer on that particular list. The initiative to stop it must be ours. How are you, sir? [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. 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. 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. He did say he was going to increase troop levels in Afghanistan, so he's kept that promise. 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. Do you find this information helpful? Surely we must see that the men we supported pressed them to their violence. This is Howard, which you know me. He supported Johnsons calls for diplomatic negotiations and economic development as the beginnings of such a step. Sorry, I'm a little bit emotional here. The film is the second episode of Tavis Smiley Reports. Surely we must understand their feelings even if we do not condone their actions. [26], The same year, King nominated Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh for the Nobel Peace Prize, but the prize was not awarded to anyone that year. 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. It was they who led a second struggle against French domination at tremendous costs, and then were persuaded to give up the land they controlled between the thirteenth and seventeenth parallel as a temporary measure at Geneva. Nor does the human spirit move without great difficulty against all the apathy of conformist thought within ones own bosom and in the surrounding world. 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. Ken Rudin joins guest host Rebecca Roberts. Could we blame them for such thoughts? 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. There is something seductively tempting about stopping there and sending us all off on what in some circles has become a popular crusade against the war in Vietnam. Copyright 2010 NPR. He was one of the most important and influential Civil Rights leaders in the 1950s and 1960s. Howard's calling us from South Bend. 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. But two, to the audio, there are only less than 10 minutes of this speech that got covered. That's what I feel. 1967 speech delivered by Martin Luther King Jr. ) 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 0000040748 00000 n 0000010534 00000 n 20072023 Blackpast.org. 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. 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. 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. This is an excellent Common Core-aligned primary source from Martin Luther King speaking about his stance on the Vietnam 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 peasants may well wonder if we plan to build our new Vietnam on such grounds as these? Fifty-years ago in April 1967, the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., delivered one of his most memorable, if not controversial sermons, at Riverside Church just steps away from the Columbia University campus. For it occurs to me that what we are submitting them to in Vietnam is not simply the brutalizing process that goes on in any war where armies face each other and seek to destroy. CONAN: We (unintelligible) to see it. For nine years following 1945 we denied the people of Vietnam the right of independence. Carson and Shepard, 2001. History is cluttered with the wreckage of nations and individuals that pursued this self-defeating path of hate. Martin Luther King, Jr. utilizes figurative to emphasize the inhumanity and immorality of the war. We must be prepared to match actions with words by seeking out every creative means of protest possible. Or will there be another message, of longing, of hope, of solidarity with their yearnings, of commitment to their cause, whatever the cost? They must weep as the bulldozers roar through their areas preparing to destroy the precious trees. They brought in extra chairs. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. - Zinn Education Project n the one hand we are called to play the good Samaritan on lifes roadside; but that will be only an initial act. 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. You're listening to TALK OF THE NATION from NPR News. 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. And Tavis, nice to have you back in the program. 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. The question is, is it a war of necessity or a war of choice at this point? Martin Luther King: Beyond Vietnam and Remaining Awake Through a Great Revolution, 90th Cong., 2d sess., Congressional Record 114 (9 April 1968): 93919397. 159. Life often leaves us standing bare, naked and dejected with a lost opportunity. These are revolutionary times. This is the calling of the sons of God, and our brothers wait eagerly for our response. I Have a Dream, speech by Martin Luther King, Jr., that was delivered on August 28, 1963, during the March on Washington. Shall we say the odds are too great? Some 250,000 people gathered at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., for the March on Washington. 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. Martin Luther King, Jr. believed that peace and economic justice were critical to his fight for human rights. In Hanoi are the men who led the nation to independence against the Japanese and the French, the men who sought membership in the French commonwealth and were betrayed by the weakness of Paris and the willfulness of the colonial armies. 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. Mr. SMILEY: That's right. . 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. In the 1950s and 1960s, his words led the Civil Rights Movement and helped change society. We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now. And there was a 18-year-old black Marine that picked me up since I couldn't walk, got me away from bombs and saved my life. Before the end of the war we were meeting eighty percent of the French war costs. 0000012562 00000 n Now let us rededicate ourselves to the long and bitter but beautifulstruggle for a new world. 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. True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar; it is not haphazard and superficial. At the heart of their concerns this query has often loomed large and loud: Why are you speaking about war, Dr. King? 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. 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. Martin Luther King, Jr. (January 15, 1929 - April 4, 1968) between the war in Vietnam and the struggle I, and others, have been waging in America. [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. [19][20], In a 1952 letter to Coretta Scott, he said: "I imagine you already know that I am much more socialistic in my economic theory than capitalistic"[21] In one speech, he stated that "something is wrong with capitalism" and claimed, "There must be a better distribution of wealth, and maybe America must move toward a democratic socialism. Challenges of the final years of Martin Luther King, Jr. 0000002694 00000 n We have destroyed their land and their crops. King Scores Poverty Budget, New York Times, 16 December 1966. 0000043425 00000 n There were experiments, hopes, new beginnings. AFP/AFP/Getty Images 0000007566 00000 n Life magazine called the speech "demagogic slander that sounded like a script for Radio Hanoi",[9] and The Washington Post declared that King had "diminished his usefulness to his cause, his country, his people. 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.
