Soon, the only solid solid physical foundations remaining will be found at our military bases and in the concrete of the concentration camps we call fortified hamlets. The peasants may well wonder if we plan to build our new Vietnam on such grounds as these. Martin Luther King April 4, 1967 Riverside Church, New York City In order to atone for our sins and errors in Vietnam, we should take the initiative in bringing a halt to this tragic war. % Number two: Declare a unilateral cease-fire in the hope that such action will create the atmosphere for negotiation. They see the children degraded by our soldiers as they beg for food. 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. We encouraged them with our huge financial and military supplies to continue the war even after they had lost the will. Three: Take immediate steps to prevent other battlegrounds in Southeast Asia by curtailing our military buildup in Thailand and our interference in Laos. This oft misunderstood, this oft misinterpreted concept, so readily dismissed by the Nietzsches of the world as a weak and cowardly force, has now become an absolute necessity for the survival of man. I am not speaking of that force which is just emotional bosh. Declaringmy conscience leaves me no other choice,King described the wars deleterious effects on both Americas poor and Vietnamese peasants and insisted that it was morally imperative for the United States to take radical steps to halt the war through nonviolent means (King, Beyond Vietnam, 139). Meanwhile Meanwhile, we in the churches and synagogues have a continuing task while we urge our government to disengage itself from a disgraceful commitment. Have they forgotten that my ministry is in obedience to the One who loved his enemies so fully that he died for them? Is it among these voiceless ones? 825 Eighth Avenue, New York, NY 10019, WNET is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. The shirtless and barefoot people of the land are rising up as never before. In April 1967, Martin Luther King Jr. delivered an eloquent and stirring denunciation of the Vietnam War and US militarism. 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. Though her portions be the scaffold, and upon the throne be wrong 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. << /Pages 117 0 R /Type /Catalog >> To change course, King suggested a five point outline for stopping the war, which included a call for a unilateral ceasefire. We have cooperated in the crushing in the crushing of the nations only non-Communist revolutionary political force, the unified Buddhist Church. On 4 April 1967 Martin Luther King, Jr., delivered his seminal speech at Riverside Church condemning the Vietnam War. Even so, the establishment considered it a shock, a disgrace. During the past ten years, we have seen emerge a pattern of suppression which has now justified the presence of U.S. military advisors in Venezuela. Before the end of the war we were meeting eighty percent of the French war costs. And finally, as I try to explain 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. xcbd`g`b``8 "Y& D2 IF>E0y6DrLb`] R3XM-c |)f&!ME Here's the video. Part of our ongoing 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. King delivered a speech entitled " Beyond Vietnam ," pointing out that the war effort was "taking the black young men who had been crippled by our society and sending them eight thousand miles away to guarantee liberties in Southeast Asia which they had not found in southwest Georgia and East Harlem" (King, " Beyond Vietnam ," 143). Interior of Riverside Church on W. 120th Street in Manhattan. The Institute cannot give permission to use or reproduce any of the writings, statements, or images of Martin Luther King, Jr. King urged insteada radical revolution of valuesemphasizing love and justice rather than economic nationalism (King, Beyond Vietnam,157). 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. We have corrupted their women and children and killed their men. At the heart of their concerns this query has often loomed large and loud: Why are you speaking about the war, Dr. King? Why are you joining the voices of dissent? Peace and civil rights dont mix, they say. The only change came from America, as we increased our troop commitments in support of governments which were singularly corrupt, inept, and without popular support. Every nation must now develop an overriding loyalty to mankind as a whole in order to preserve the best in their individual societies. Infant mortality rates fell from 32.6 per 1,000 live births in 1993 to 16.7 in 2020. Even before the French were defeated at Dien Bien Phu, they began to despair of their reckless action, but we did not. Now let us begin. This speech is not addressed to Hanoi or to the National Liberation Front. They ask how we can speak of free elections when the Saigon press is censored and controlled by the military junta. The speech titled "Beyond Vietnam" is relevant to today's war in Ukraine. 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. His indictment of the U.S. government and the war became known as The Riverside Church Speech and it was criticized by media from The New York Times to the Washington Post, and by groups such as the NAACP, which objected to the Civil Rights Movement weighing in on the war and joining anti-war protests. 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. In April 1967, Martin Luther King Jr. delivered an eloquent and stirring denunciation of the Vietnam war and US militarism. This is a case of getting out of a certain frame of mind, of a way of thinking about ourselves and about the world.. America never was America to me, The peasants watched and cringed as Diem ruthlessly rooted out all opposition, supported their extortionist landlords, and refused even to discuss reunification with the North. His speech appears below. Life often leaves us standing bare, naked, and dejected with a lost opportunity. King, Interview on Face the Nation, 29 August 1965, RRML-TxTyU. These words, spoken exactly one year to the day before his assassination . She was once a tour guide in real life, too. MLK's Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence. In that address he articulated his reasons for his opposition to the Southeast Asian conflict. #1 Strong Economic Growth Rates. If we will but make the right choice, we will be able to speed up the day, all over America and all over the world, when justice will roll down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream., 2023 WNET. 3. Screenshots are considered by the King Estate a violation of this notice. We are now faced with the fact, my friends, that tomorrow is today. A true revolution of values will soon cause us to question the fairness and justice of many of our past and present policies. During this time period there was a lot of controversy surrounding the war. 9 min read. Where are the roots of the independent Vietnam we claim to be building? 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. endobj Notably, the economy grew at an average annual rate of 7.5% in 1991-2000 period. 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. 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. Seleziona una pagina. Even though they quoted the American Declaration of Independence in their own document of freedom, we refused to recognize them. Perhaps a new spirit is rising among us. A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death. We have destroyed their two most cherished institutions: the family and the village. We must find new ways to speak for peace in Vietnam and justice throughout the developing world, a world that borders on our doors. Dr. King's purpose is to make the church leaders he is speaking to aware that 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. Due to the Vietnam War is that plenty of individuals, both Americans and Vietnamese were killed. We must continue to raise our voices and our lives if our nation persists in its perverse ways in Vietnam. They will be concerned about Thailand and Cambodia. Both the Washington Post and New York Times published editorials criticizing the speech, with the Post noting that Kings speech haddiminished his usefulness to his cause, to his country, and to his peoplethrough a simplistic and flawed view of the situation (A Tragedy,6 April 1967). Relevance to U.S. Wars and Militarism Today By Mary Hladky, American Friends Service Committee, KC Program Committee Clerk and United for Peace and Justice, Coordinating Committee Member 50 years ago, on April 4, 1967 at Riverside Church, in NYC, Martin Luther King delivered his powerful and most . I speak for those whose land is being laid waste, whose homes are being destroyed, whose culture is being subverted. We are adding cynicism to the process of death, for they must know after a short period there that none of the things we claim to be fighting for are really involved. The Los Angeles speech, calledThe Casualties of the War in Vietnam,stressed the history of the conflict and argued that American power should beharnessed to the service of peace and human beings, not an inhumane power [unleashed] against defenseless people(King, 25 February 1967). 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? On April 4, 1967, exactly one year before his assassination, Dr. Martin Luther King gave his first major public address on the War in Vietnam at a meeting of Clergy and Laity Concerned at Riverside Church in New York City. 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 air, America reached new heights with NASA's Apollo 8 orbiting the moon and Boeing's 747 jumbo jet's first flight. For those who ask the question, Arent you a civil rights leader? and thereby mean to exclude me from the movement for peace, I have this further answer. In 1967, however, Beyond Vietnam ignited an uproar. << /Type /XRef /Length 100 /Filter /FlateDecode /DecodeParms << /Columns 5 /Predictor 12 >> /W [ 1 3 1 ] /Index [ 51 91 ] /Info 74 0 R /Root 53 0 R /Size 142 /Prev 584506 /ID [] >> Freedom is still the bonus we receive for knowing the truth. When I speak of love I am not speaking of some sentimental and weak response. 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. 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 to Ukraine. And the choice goes by forever twixt that darkness and that light. The essence of the speech focused on the war in Vietnam. The war in Vietnam is but a symptom of a far deeper malady within the American spirit, and if we ignore this sobering realityand if we ignore this sobering reality, we will find ourselves organizing clergy and laymen concerned committees for the next generation. King holds the U.S. government and the American people responsible for the Vietnam . True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar. Their questions hit home, and I knew that I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed in the ghettos without having first spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today my own government. The situation is one in which we must be ready to turn sharply from our present ways. 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. 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 resolved without trustful give and take on both sides. 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. With that tragic decision we rejected a revolutionary government seeking self-determination and a government that had been established not by China for whom the Vietnamese have no great love but by clearly indigenous forces that included some communists. 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 Agreement concerning foreign troops. 4. give the NLF a say in negotiations. Senator Barry Goldwater (AZ), the Republican Party presidential nominee in 1964, said the speech could border a bit on treason., Civil Rights activist and U.S. Representative John Lewis (GA), who was among the 3,800 in the audience when King gave the speech, told the New Yorker Magazine in 2017 that the speech was a speech for all humanityfor the world community. In that address, he articulated his reasons for his opposition to the Southeast Asian conflict. I would like to suggest five concrete things that our government should do [immediately] to begin the long and difficult process of extricating ourselves from this nightmarish conflict: Number one: End all bombing in North and South Vietnam. Surely we must understand their feelings, even if we do not condone their actions. 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. or 404 526-8968. It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring. !1V"7AQau2TUqt#46BRrs35b$e%CSFc&d ? King, Statement on voter registration in Alabama, 9 March 1965, MLKJP-GAMK. So, I was increasingly compelled to see the war as an enemy of the poor and to attack it as such. Good or bad, the US was afraid that communism would spread to South Vietnam and then the rest of Asia. Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence " Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence ", also referred as the Riverside Church speech, [1] is an anti-Vietnam War and pro- social justice speech delivered by Martin Luther King Jr. on April 4, 1967, exactly one year before he was assassinated. They remind us that they did not begin to send troops in large numbers and even supplies into the South until American forces had moved into the tens of thousands. In international conflicts, the truth is hard to come by because most nations are deceived about themselves. The people who sat in darkness have seen a great light. We in the West must support these revolutions.