martin luther king jr vietnam war speech transcriptmartin luther king jr vietnam war speech transcript

Mr. SMILEY: Yeah, Walt, I thank you for sharing that story as well, for being courageous to tell it, number one. 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 in any future Vietnam government. (Unintelligible) on this program about, you know, the chances he took and even, you know, speaking truth to power to LBJ helped him so much in civil rights. The Washington Post says he has done a discredit to himself, to his people, to his country. 0000002964 00000 n And King gives a great speech out of that hospital called "If I Had Sneezed." So far we may have killed a million of them mostly children. Every nation must now develop an overriding loyalty to mankind as a whole in order to preserve the best in their individual societies. 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. It is with such activity in mind that the words of the late John F. Kennedy come back to haunt us. 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. Paul A. Schuette, King Preaches on Non-Violence at Police-Guarded Howard Hall, Washington Post, 3 March 1965. 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. King to Weigh Civil Disobedience If War Intensifies, New York Times, 2 April 1967. During the past ten years we have seen emerge a pattern of suppression which now has justified the presence of U.S. military advisors in Venezuela. Hb```f``; 6Pco;{Q. 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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. V)U5v\@apkk;#WF. Afghanistan, not so much. But this is, again, precisely what King was concerned about, putting the lives of everyday Americans on the line in a fight that was not winnable and a war that was unjust. It seemed as if there was a real promise of hope for the poorboth black . So he was no longer on that particular list. Finally, as I try to delineate for you and for myself the road that leads from Montgomery to this place I would have offered all that was most valid if I simply said that I must be true to my conviction that I share with all men the calling to be a son of the living God. 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. Have they forgotten that my ministry is in obedience to the one who loved his enemies so fully that he died for them? (2)] Excuse me. Jazmyn Ford. Thanks, as always for your time. 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. 0000002874 00000 n 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. So they go primarily women and children and the aged. 1967 speech delivered by Martin Luther King Jr. [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. ", In 1967, a year to the day before his death, Martin Luther King, Jr. departed from his message of civil rights to deliver a speech that denounced America's war in Vietnam. 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. And so the question was, Martin, why would you antagonize the president who has been our friend? Smiley spoke with both scholars and friends of King, including Cornel West, Vincent Harding and Susannah Heschel. (AFP via Getty Images) "Why are you speaking about the war, Dr. King? [citation needed] Content [ edit] 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 . 0000011739 00000 n 0000009985 00000 n Every man of humane convictions must decide on the protest that best suits his convictions, but we must all protest. In describing the ways in which the . CONAN: Well, take us back to 1967. Moreover I would encourage all ministers of draft age to give up their ministerial exemptions and seek status as conscientious objectors. Indeed, their questions suggest that they do not know the world in which they live. In his 1967 speech on the Vietnam War, Martin Luther King, Jr. employs figurative language and syntactical elements to construct his argument against the hypocrisy and cruelty of American involvement in the war. 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. 0000013408 00000 n Mr. SMILEY: Neal, thank you for the opportunity. On April 15, 1967, King participated and spoke at an anti-war march from Manhattan's Central Park to the United Nations. Now let us begin. And King was prescient on this. At the time, civil rights leaders publicly condemned him for it. Grossfield, Stan. 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. Ken Rudin joins guest host Rebecca Roberts. 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. They asked if our own nation wasnt using massive doses of violence to solve its problems, to bring about the changes it wanted. 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. The Institute cannot give permission to use or reproduce any of the writings, statements, or images of Martin Luther King, Jr. And thirdly, I think the main point here in this MLK "Beyond Vietnam" speech is that there is another way. 5. 0000004834 00000 n [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. To speak for them is to explain this lack of confidence in Western words, and especially their distrust of American intentions now. By the time King made the "Beyond Vietnam" speech, Smiley tells host Neal Conan, "he had fallen off already the list of most-admired Americans as tallied by Gallup every year." Appreciate it. This Hindu-Moslem-Christian-Jewish-Buddhist belief about ultimate reality is beautifully summed up in the first epistle of Saint John: Let us love one another; for love is God and everyone that loveth is born of God and knoweth God. Perhaps only his sense of humor and of irony can save him when he hears the most powerful nation of the world speaking of aggression as it drops thousands of bombs on a poor weak nation more than eight thousand miles away from its shores. All the while the people read our leaflets and received regular promises of peace and democracy and land reform. I would like to see the fervor of the civil-rights movement imbued into the peace movement to instill it with greater strength. Martin Luther King, Jr., giving his speech Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence at Riverside Church in NYC, April 4, 1967. 0000001739 00000 n 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. Martin Luther King Jr.'s "Beyond Vietnam" was a powerful and angry speech that raged against the war. 0000001645 00000 n CONAN: "MLK: A Call to Conscience" premieres on PBS tomorrow night. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. gave a speech opposing the Vietnam War in April 1967. 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. So we have been repeatedly faced with the cruel irony of watching Negro and white boys on TV screens as they kill and die together for a nation that has been unable to seat them together in the same schools. "[24] King quoted a United States official who said that from Vietnam to Latin America, the country was "on the wrong side of a world revolution. 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. Their questions are frighteningly relevant. 16, 1967 in New York. 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. The situation is one in which we must be ready to turn sharply from our present ways. These are the times for real choices and not false ones. Please c, ontact Intellectual Properties Management (IPM), the exclusive licensor of the Estate of Martin Luther King, Jr., Inc. at. Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library, Washington, D.C. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Library, San Jose, April 15, 1967 Anti-Vietnam war demonstrations, 1968 Democratic National Convention protests, Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District, Fifth Avenue Vietnam Peace Parade Committee, National Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam, John F. Kennedy's speech to the nation on Civil Rights, Heart of Atlanta Motel, Inc. v. United States, Chicago Freedom Movement/Chicago open housing movement, Green v. County School Board of New Kent County, Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights, Council for United Civil Rights Leadership, Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), "Woke Up This Morning (With My Mind Stayed On Freedom)", List of lynching victims in the United States, Birmingham Civil Rights National Monument, Medgar and Myrlie Evers Home National Monument, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Beyond_Vietnam:_A_Time_to_Break_Silence&oldid=1133369048, Wikipedia articles needing page number citations from January 2023, Articles with unsourced statements from January 2023, Articles with unsourced statements from December 2021, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, This page was last edited on 13 January 2023, at 12:35.

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