We have destroyed their two most cherished institutions: the family and the village. Similarly, both the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and Ralph Bunche accused King of linking two disparate issues, Vietnam and civil rights. Dr. King choose to speak out against the war in Vietnam? These are days which demand wise restraint and calm reasonableness. King had stepped up his anti-war proclamations on February 25, 1967, when he appeared at a convention in Beverly Hills, California. Meanwhile Meanwhile, we in the churches and synagogues have a continuing task while we urge our government to disengage itself from a disgraceful commitment. If Americas soul becomes totally poisoned, part of the autopsy must read: Vietnam. Tax ID: 26-2810489. 1968 was a turning point in U.S. history, a year of triumphs and tragedies, social and political upheavals, that forever changed our country. According to the PBS documentary MLK: A Call to Conscience (2010), the speech was denounced by 168 newspapers across the country. Notably, the economy grew at an average annual rate of 7.5% in 1991-2000 period. A Speech That Took a Stand But arguably "Beyond Vietnam" was the most famous, and widely denounced, since it came before the Tet Offensive and the massacre at My Lai which turned public opinion in the U.S. broadly against the war. They will be concerned about Mozambique and South Africa. A true revolution of values will soon look uneasily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth. Dr. They must weep as the bulldozers roar through their areas preparing to destroy the precious trees. They will be concerned about Guatemala Guatemala and Peru. In April 1967, Martin Luther King Jr. delivered an eloquent and stirring denunciation of the Vietnam war and US militarism. . #4 New Market. And we must rejoice as well, for surely this is the first time in our nations history that a significant number of its religious leaders have chosen to move beyond the prophesying of smooth patriotism to the high grounds of a firm dissent based upon the mandates of conscience and the reading of history. Will our message be that the forces of American life militate against their arrival as full men, and we send our deepest regrets? 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. Cypress Hall D, 466 Via Ortega, Stanford, CA 94305-4146 Martin Luther King Beyond Vietnam. A true revolution of values will soon cause us to question the fairness and justice of many of our past and present policies. And the choice goes by forever twixt that darkness and that light. 51 0 obj Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence was actually a collaborative work largely written by a close associate and friend of Martin Luther King, Jr. - Vincent Harding. 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. For nine years following 1945 we denied the people of Vietnam the right of independence. They ask if our own nation wasnt using massive doses of violence to solve its problems, to bring about the changes it wanted. MLK: Beyond Vietnam - A Time to Break Silence The Martin Luther King, Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change 251K views 7 years ago William Pepper - The Execution of Martin Luther King. Then we must make what reparations we can for the damage we have done. Not only were they fighting for their own rights in 1976, but they were sending away the son, husbands, brothers of other Americans thousands of miles away to the country of Vietnam to fight an unjust war for the rights of the people in Southeast Asia. Kings address emphasized his responsibility to the American people and explained that conversations with young black men in the ghettos reinforced his own commitment to nonviolence. xc```b``9Y `6+ *i`x!fw[ TC82U |])KXl[T7R)UbpE0q@e8.;c q8, e0+EN328v`8 00~QAI[ksz#Jw;`t!>8#oB;|;!V QM It tells why American helicopters are being used against guerrillas in Cambodia and why American napalm and Green Beret forces have already been active against rebels in Peru. King, Transformed Nonconformist, Sermon Delivered at Ebenezer Baptist Church, 16 January 1966, CSKC. The tide in the affairs of men does not remain at flood it ebbs. Five years ago he said, Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable. 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 investments. I need not pause to say how very delighted I am to be here tonight, and how very delighted I am to see you expressing your concern about the issues that will be discussed tonight by turning out in such large numbers. We have destroyed their land and their crops. While they both may have justifiable reasons to be suspicious of the good faith of the United States, life and history give eloquent testimony to the fact that conflicts are never . Vietnam's Amended Constitution 1992 recognized the role of private sector in the economy. Did you find this entry while surfing the web? Surely we must understand their feelings, even if we do not condone their actions. Become a member of THIRTEEN ($5 monthly or $60 annually) and get access to THIRTEEN Passport as our thanks for your support. Martin Luther King Jr.'s "Beyond Vietnam" was a powerful and angry speech that raged against the war. 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 in Vietnam and to understand the arguments of those who are called enemy, I am as deeply concerned about our own troops there as anything else. We must not engage in a negative anticommunism, but rather in a positive thrust for democracy, realizing that our greatest defense against communism is to take offensive action in behalf of justice. 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? The belief of the clergy took the theme of silence is betrayal. They will be concerned about Thailand and Cambodia. But they ask and rightly so what about Vietnam? King,The Casualties of the War in Vietnam,25 February 1967, CLPAC. When Diem was overthrown they may have been happy, but the long line of military dictators seemed to offer no real change, especially in terms of their need for land and peace. Five: Set a date that we will remove all foreign troops from Vietnam in accordance with the 1954 Geneva Agreement. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights, are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, extreme materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered.. Four: Realistically accept the fact that the National Liberation Front has substantial support in South Vietnam and must thereby play a role in any meaningful negotiations and any future Vietnam government. Dr. King's purpose is to make the church leaders he is speaking to aware that King's famous speech, "Beyond Vietnam: A time to break the silence," deserves study by antiwar activists and others seeking a better understanding of the battle for economic justice, racial equality and freedom at home and abroad. What must they think of the United States of 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? See transcript of full speech, below. aYej{uOAs/9lo-6'j-gy,=F*9bt,Ukj"h jPIL Indeed, their questions suggest that they do not know the world in which they live. It seemed as if there was a real promise of hope for the poor both black and white through the poverty program. 9 min read. Surely we must see that the men we supported pressed them to their violence. P: (650) 723-2092 | F: (650) 723-2093 | kinginstitute@stanford.edu| Campus Map. We may cry out desperately for time to pause in her passage, but time is adamant to every plea and rushes on. Read on for background on the historic speech, highlights and the speech in in its entirety. In the light of such tragic misunderstanding, 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. Instead, we decided to support France in its reconquest of her former colony. $2.00. Though the cause of evil prosper, yet tis truth alone is strong They wander into the hospitals with at least twenty casualties from American firepower for one Vietcong-inflicted injury. Tonight, however, I wish not to speak with Hanoi and the National Liberation Front, but rather to my fellow Americans. It was sending their sons and their brothers and their husbands to fight and to die in extraordinarily high proportions relative to the rest of the population. By Matthew Hoh, Counter Punch, January 16, 2023. 1. punished the poor. These, too, are our brothers. This is a case of getting out of a certain frame of mind, of a way of thinking about ourselves and about the world.. But the day has passed for superficial patriotism. They watch as we poison their water, as we kill a million acres of their crops. endstream After 1954 they watched us conspire with Diem to prevent elections which could have surely brought Ho Chi Minh to power over a united Vietnam, and they realized they had been betrayed again. Now there is little left to build on, save bitterness. King, " The Casualties of the War in Vietnam, " 25 February 1967, CLPAC. All over the globe men are revolting against old systems of exploitation and oppression, and out of the wounds of a frail world, new systems of justice and equality are being born. During this time period there was a lot of controversy surrounding the war. Vietnam spending eviscerated of the Poverty Program 2. !1V"7AQau2TUqt#46BRrs35b$e%CSFc&d ? On April 4, 1967 Martin Luther King Jr. wrote a speech named, "Beyond Vietnam- A Time to Break Silence" addressing the Vietnam War. The United States got involved in the Vietnam War because they wanted to stop the spread of communism. And 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. The situation is one in which we must be ready to turn sharply from our present ways. To speak for them is to explain this lack of confidence in Western words, and especially their distrust of American intentions now. Perhaps the more tragic recognition of reality took place when it became clear to me that the war was doing far more than devastating the hopes of the poor at home. I speak for those whose land is being laid waste, whose homes are being destroyed, whose culture is being subverted. How can they believe in our integrity when now we speak of aggression from the North as if there were nothing more essential to the war? Arent you hurting the cause of your people, they ask? Life often leaves us standing bare, naked, and dejected with a lost opportunity. Perhaps a more difficult but no less necessary task is to speak for those who have been designated as our enemies. Omar Khayyam is right: The moving finger writes, and having writ moves on.. 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. endobj Though her portions be the scaffold, and upon the throne be wrong In the strife of truth and Falsehood, for the good or evil side; Could we blame them for such thoughts? I still think this is probably the best., It seemed as if there was a real promise of hope for the poor both black and white through the poverty program. I have tried to offer them my deepest compassion while maintaining my conviction that social change comes most meaningfully through nonviolent action. #6 Low Expenses. This call for a worldwide fellowship that lifts neighborly concern beyond ones tribe, race, class, and nation is in reality a call for an all-embracing embracing and unconditional love for all mankind. And when I hear them, though I often understand the source of their concern, I am nevertheless greatly saddened, for such questions mean that the inquirers have not really known me, my commitment or my calling. History is cluttered with the wreckage of nations and individuals that pursued this self-defeating path of hate. The essence of the speech focused on the war in Vietnam. 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. Surely we must see that our own computerized plans of destruction simply dwarf their greatest acts. Helping you get here is part of her job. % << /BitsPerComponent 8 /ColorSpace /DeviceRGB /ColorTransform 0 /Filter /DCTDecode /Height 609 /Subtype /Image /Type /XObject /Width 1600 /Length 68988 >> . And if we will only make the right choice, we will be able to transform this pending cosmic elegy into a creative psalm of peace. Some of the incidents . In international conflicts, the truth is hard to come by because most nations are deceived about themselves. King enumerated seven major reasons to bring the war to an end based on moral vision. Martin Luther King had spoken critically about the Vietnam War before, but it was his blistering Beyond Vietnam speech at an event sponsored by Clergy and Laymen Concerned about Vietnam that gained wide attention. Could it be that they do not know that the good news was meant for all men for Communist and capitalist, for their children and ours, for black and for white, for revolutionary and conservative? In addition to Martin Luther King, Jr., the church has hosted many prominent speakers, including Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the German theologian who was executed in 1945 at a German concentration camp; Cesar Chavez, the Mexican-American civil rights activist who co-founded the National Farm Workers Association; and Nelson Mandela, anti-apartheid revolutionary, politician and former president of South Africa. Reverend Martin Luther King Jr.'s speech, Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence argues his stance against the government and their decisions on war. 'I Have a Dream'. endobj He drafted several speeches for King over the years and eventually became the first director of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial Center. They illustrate the depth of Dr. King's comprehension that the Civil Rights Movement was a struggle of more than one race in one nation at one point in time. Since I am a preacher by calling, I suppose it is not surprising that I have seven major reasons for bringing Vietnam into the field of my moral vision. 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 shirtless and barefoot people of the land are rising up as never before. This February, the Humanities curriculum for Grade 7 is focused on the Vietnam War. And so we watch them in brutal solidarity burning the huts of a poor village, but we realize that they would hardly live on the same block in Chicago. Martin Luther King uses persuasive argument in his speeches. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights, are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, extreme materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered. The Americans are forcing even their friends into becoming their enemies. %PDF-1.5 In Dr. Martin Luther King's speech "Beyond VietnamA Time to Break Silence" (1967), Dr. King asserts that the war in Vietnam is totally immoral and has far reaching negative implications not only for Vietnam, but for The United States and the rest of the World as well. In the air, America reached new heights with NASA's Apollo 8 orbiting the moon and Boeing's 747 jumbo jet's first flight. However, all was not well on the ground: the country lost a Navy intelligence ship (USS Pueblo) and two 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. Now, it should be incandescently clear that no one who has any concern for the integrity and life of America today can ignore the present war. Dr. King's purpose is to make the church leaders he is speaking to aware that In that address he articulated his reasons for his opposition to the Southeast Asian conflict. The pro-social justice and anti-war speech were delivered to state MLK's opposition . 3. stop the creation of battlefield in Laos and Thailand. 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 South 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. These are the times for real choices and not false ones. After more than a decade in the public eye fighting racism and inequality in America, King plunged himself into another searing, divisive issue in America with his speech, Beyond Vietnam: A. A year to the day before his assassination, Martin Luther King publicly and decisively denounced not only the US war in Vietnam but the militarism that enabled the war and undermined American society. 1. stop all bombing in Vietnam. Some great cause, Gods new Messiah offering each the bloom or blight, And history is cluttered with the wreckage of nations and individuals that pursued this self-defeating path of hate. Where are the roots of the independent Vietnam we claim to be building? North Vietnam's war profoundly divided American citizens, seriously damaged American credibility around the world, and lent moral support to many radical movements in Africa and Latin America. A Tragedy,Washington Post, 6 April 1967. We are called to speak for the weak, for the voiceless, for the victims of our nation and for those it calls enemy, for no document from human hands can make these humans any less our brothers. King claimed that America madepeaceful revolution impossible by refusing to give up the privileges and the pleasures that come from the immense profits of overseas investments(King,Beyond Vietnam,157). Ho Chi Minh has watched as America has spoken of peace and built up its forces, and now he has surely heard the increasing international rumors of American plans for an invasion of the North. We encouraged them with our huge financial and military supplies to continue the war even after they had lost the will. Therefore, communism is a judgment against our failure to make democracy real and follow through on the revolutions that we initiated. Communist China did not spread communism beyond Vietnam [Laos and Cambodia]. I could not be silent in the face of such cruel manipulation of the poor. 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. He spoke at Riverside Church in New York City, a venue that had a history of hosting progressive speakers and thinkers. In the speech at Riverside Church, King talked about how the US had supported France in trying to re-colonize . In that address, he articulated his reasons for his opposition to the Southeast Asian conflict. 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. P. 206-215. It demands that we admit that we have been wrong from the beginning of our adventure in Vietnam, that we have been detrimental to the life of the Vietnamese people. The people who sat in darkness have seen a great light. We in the West must support these revolutions. Neither is it an attempt to make North Vietnam or the National Liberation Front paragons of virtue, nor to overlook the role they must play in the successful resolution of the problem. Tragically, half a century after "Beyond Vietnam," America is still the greatest purveyor of violence in the world, and the giant triplets of racism, extreme materialism, and militarism . 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. This is the calling of the sons of God, and our brothers wait eagerly for our response. Both sides alleged, more or less accurately, that the other side was continuously violating the terms . 52 0 obj The Institute cannot give permission to use or reproduce any of the writings, statements, or images of Martin Luther King, Jr. We are at the moment when our lives must be placed on the line if our nation is to survive its own folly. If it is, let us trace its movements 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.