It was written by activist and historian Vincent Harding. What then can I say to the Vietcong or to Castro or to Mao as a faithful minister of this one? Q%F70%iR! Martin Luther King, Jr. believed that peace and economic justice were critical to his fight for human rights. 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. End all bombing in North and South Vietnam. What do they think of our condoning the violence which led to their own taking up of arms? But when he turns the corner and then says, essentially, that Martin's philosophy wouldn't work in today's world, he goes on to say that Dr. King didn't know al-Qaida, as if to suggest that Martin didn't understand evil, that Martin didn't understand violence, that he himself had not been subjected to it. A few days later, King made it clear that his peace work was not undertaken as the leader of the SCLC, but as an individual, as a clergyman, as one who is greatly concerned about peace (Dr. Every nation must now develop an overriding loyalty to mankind as a whole in order to preserve the best in their individual societies. [18] He guarded his language in public to avoid being linked to communism by his enemies, but in private he sometimes spoke of his support for democratic socialism. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. led the 1955 Montgomery bus boycott, organized the 1963 March on Washington, advocated for civil disobedience and. But they didn't stay for the speech in its entirety. In so many words, powerful interests told him: "Mind your own business.". 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. 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. What liberators? 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. Arent you hurting the cause of your people, they ask? It can never be saved so long as it destroys the deepest hopes of men the world over. That's at npr.org, click on TALK OF THE NATION. King Leads Chicago). 0000002427 00000 n 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. When I speak of love I am not speaking of some sentimental and weak response. When we ask why they do not leap to negotiate, these things must be remembered. But the entire speech, of course, thankfully, was recorded on audio. 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. Indeed, their questions suggest that they do not know the world in which they live. Let's go to Walt(ph). Fearful of being labeled a Communist, which would diminish the impact of his civil rights work, King tempered his criticism of U.S. policy in Vietnam through late 1965 and 1966. There were a lot of people inside. 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. He is best known for helping achieve civil equality for African Americans, but these speeches--selected because they were each presented at a turning point in the . [6], 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. 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. 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. 2/QB(yQVz^*oU.FW We appreciate that. And that's the issue that King was raising. Email us: talk@npr.org. He knows the bombing and shelling and mining we are doing are part of traditional pre-invasion strategy. 0000006515 00000 n Nevertheless, I am in a different position as the president of the United States. 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. [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. Since I am a preacher by trade, I suppose it is not surprising that I have seven major reasons for bringing Vietnam into the field of my moral vision. 0000047501 00000 n Such thoughts take us beyond Vietnam, but not beyond our calling as sons of the living God. Communism will never be defeated by the use of atomic bombs or nuclear weapons. They watch as we poison their water, as we kill a million acres of their crops. 0000044282 00000 n His speech appears below. I speak now not of the soldiers of each side, not of the junta in Saigon, but simply of the people who have been living under the curse of war for almost three continuous decades now. Ken Rudin joins guest host Rebecca Roberts. Martin Luther King, Jr. 4 April 1967. This need to maintain social stability for our investments accounts for the counter-revolutionary action of American forces in Guatemala. Mr. SMILEY: It's a powerful point made by Clayborne Carson at Stanford who is in charge, as you know, Neal, of the King papers. 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 . King contemplated but ultimately decided against the proposal on the grounds that he felt uneasy with politics and considered himself better suited for his morally unambiguous role as an activist.[25]. dH(*b(jGB@'k1zTR~{dA9|\b. [29], Excerpts from this speech are used in the songs "Together" and "Spirit" by Nordic Giants. And when you see the piece on "Lens" tonight that's the part of the speech that set off so many of those who are in King's inner circle, so many scholars who have written about King. The speech and its echoes for Afghanistan and Iraq are the subject of "Tavis Smiley Reports MLK: A Call to Conscience.". For the peasants this new government meant real land reform, one of the most important needs in their lives. CONAN: "MLK: A Call to Conscience" premieres on PBS tomorrow night. They ask how we can speak of free elections when the Saigon press is censored and controlled by the military junta. He did say he was going to increase troop levels in Afghanistan, so he's kept that promise. Mr. SMILEY: Indeed he did, Neal. n the one hand we are called to play the good Samaritan on lifes roadside; but that will be only an initial act. Declare a unilateral cease-fire in the hope that such action will create the atmosphere for negotiation. The moving finger writes, and having writ moves on We still have a choice today; nonviolent coexistence or violent co-annihilation. What of the National Liberation Front that strangely anonymous group we call VC or Communists? 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. I say we must enter the struggle, but I wish to go on now to say something even more disturbing. P: (650) 723-2092 | F: (650) 723-2093 | kinginstitute@stanford.edu| Campus Map. Afghanistan, not so much. Martin Luther King: Beyond Vietnam and Remaining Awake Through a Great Revolution, 90th Cong., 2d sess., Congressional Record 114 (9 April 1968): 93919397. Shall we tell them the struggle is too hard? 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. hide caption. Martin Luther King's Beyond Vietnam Speech is in many ways even more relevant today than in 1967. . 0000011068 00000 n After 1954 they watched us conspire with Diem to prevent elections which would have surely brought Ho Chi Minh to power over a united Vietnam, and they realized they had been betrayed again. 5. [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. Rev. You're listening to TALK OF THE NATION from NPR News. In "People and Peace, not Profits and War," Shirley Chisholm repeats the words "two more years" (42). 0000002605 00000 n 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. And after I was wounded, we had four or five 100-pound bomb dropped on us, and 10 Marines were killed outright and 24 were wounded. Robert B. Semple, Jr., Dr. It was, to your earlier point, the most controversial speech he ever gave. 0000003199 00000 n Will our message be that the forces of American life militate against their arrival as full men, and we send our deepest regrets? The United States Congress was spending more and more on the military and less and less on anti-poverty programs at the same time. There are people who have come to see the moral imperative of equality, but who cannot yet see the moral imperative of world brotherhood. Five years ago he said, Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.. 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. Nearly five years after Kings assassination, American troops withdrew from Vietnam and a peace treaty declared South and North Vietnam independent of each other. NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. "It basically ruins their relationship," says Smiley. 0000007161 00000 n [citation needed]. Here is the true meaning and value of compassion and nonviolence when it helps us to see the enemys point of view, to hear his questions, to know his assessment of ourselves.
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