It decided to send money, supplies, and military advisers to help the South Vietnamese g. We have destroyed their two most cherished institutions: the family and the village. Dr. Martin Luther King's "Beyond Vietnam" speech and analyze his opposition to the war and his commitment to fighting for justice for the poor and marginalized. For nine years following 1945 we denied the people of Vietnam the right of independence. 3. It seemed as if there was a real promise of hope for the poor both black and white through the poverty program. The recent statements 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. And that time has come for us in relation to Vietnam. A true revolution of values will lay hands on the world order and say of war: This way of settling differences is not just. This business of burning human beings with napalm, of filling our nations homes with orphans and widows, of injecting poisonous drugs of hate into veins of people normally humane, of sending men home from dark and bloody battlefields physically handicapped and psychologically deranged, cannot be reconciled with wisdom, justice and love.. Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence Rev. I say we must enter that struggle, but I wish to go on now to say something even more disturbing. They see the children degraded by our soldiers as they beg for food. Where are the roots of the independent Vietnam we claim to be building? 9 min read. Tax ID: 26-2810489. In the mid-1950s, King led the movement to end segregation and counter prejudice in the . 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. stream History is cluttered with the wreckage of nations and individuals that pursued this self-defeating path of hate. King, a gifted speaker who normally wouldnt read from text, did read out Beyond Vietnam because he planned to submit it to publications and did not want to be misquoted. In the strife of truth and Falsehood, for the good or evil side; Now let us begin. 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. With this powerful commitment we shall boldly challenge the status quo and unjust mores, and thereby speed the day when every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places plain.. 5 steps to get out of Vietnam. I heard him speak so many times. For 7 reasons: 1. 7 reason to bring into his "moral vision". Martin Luther King, Jr., giving his speech Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence at Riverside Church in NYC, April 4, 1967. 56 0 obj 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. Vincent Harding and his first wife, Rosemarie, were friends and colleagues of Martin and Coretta King in the Southern Freedom Movement, directing an interracial voluntary service unit of the Mennonite Church (Mennonite House) in . 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 speak for those whose land is being laid waste, whose homes are being destroyed, whose culture is being subverted. Dr. King's purpose is to make the church leaders he is speaking to aware that The first reason "obvious" and "facile," according to King was the effect of the Vietnam War on the War on Poverty in the United States. 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? A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death. From The Vietnam War, PBS. Vietnam's universal health coverage index is at 73higher than regional and global averageswith 87 percent of the population covered. Harding, a native of Harlem, NYC, received his BA from City College of New York and Masters in Journalism from Columbia University before serving in the US Army (1953-55) and receiving a PhD in History at the University in Chicago in 1965. His speech appears below. I join you in this meeting because Im in deepest agreement with the aims and work of the organization which has brought us together: Clergy and Laymen Concerned About Vietnam. 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. Therefore the first hope in our inventory must be the hope that love is going to have the last word (unquote). In the speech at Riverside Church, King talked about how the US had supported . It was titled "Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence." King criticized the war in Vietnam, calling on those of draft age to seek status as conscientious objectors and saying, "we should take the initiative in bringing a halt to this tragic war." A genuine revolution of values means in the final analysis that our loyalties must become ecumenical rather than sectional. To speak for them is to explain this lack of confidence in Western words, and especially their distrust of American intentions now. The Washington Post criticized his "sheer inventions of unsupported fantasy" and lamented how "many who have listened to him with respect will never again accord him the same confidence . The choice is ours, and though we might prefer it otherwise, we must choose in this crucial moment of human history. 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. Over the past two years, as I have moved to break the betrayal of my own silences and to speak from the burnings of my own heart, as I have called for radical departures from the destruction of Vietnam, many persons have questioned me about the wisdom of my path. Beyond Vietnam Ethos Pathos Logos. Indeed, their questions suggest that they do not know the world in which they live. And the choice goes by forever twixt that darkness and that light. This Hindu-Muslim-Christian-Jewish-Buddhist belief about ultimate ultimate reality is beautifully summed up in the first epistle of Saint John: Let us love one another, for love is God. 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. 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. This I believe to be the privilege and the burden of all of us who deem ourselves bound by allegiances and loyalties which are broader and deeper than nationalism and which go beyond our nations self-defined goals and positions. U.S.-Vietnam Trade Bilateral Agreement (US-BTA) was signed in . It is not addressed to China or to Russia. I speak as one who loves America, to the leaders of our own nation: The great initiative in this war is ours; the initiative to stop it must be ours. Iv?'WK4(WUx:mEc>Z:ShY| x_5i_TVov8mTS&YG=^mDHrUrrEWjTTSVSHM]A"mYq-,Hkjf^\@&` |\.xz][WjG9'*&WOyeV_5i#>Z:ShY| x_5igZfS_;nC5. So I was increasingly compelled to see the war as an enemy of the poor and to attack it as such.. Here's the essay I wrote in the video: In the speech "Beyond Vietnam - A Time to Break Silence," Dr. Rev. The peasants watched as all this was presided over by United States influence and then by increasing numbers of United States troops who came to help quell the insurgency that Diems methods had aroused. Perhaps a new spirit is rising among us. Kings Error,New York Times, 7 April 1967. Notably, the economy grew at an average annual rate of 7.5% in 1991-2000 period. endstream . We were 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. 3. stop the creation of battlefield in Laos and Thailand. ZIP FILE INCLUDES: 4 page worksheet with MLK's "Beyond Vietnam" Speech (PDF)Worksheet Answer KeyTeacher directions with ideas for useCHECK OUT THE . He who lives with untruth lives in spiritual slavery. English "Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence", also referred as Riverside Church speech, is an anti-Vietnam war and pro- social justice speech delivered by Martin Luther King, Jr. on April 4, 1967. 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. 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. King views the Vietnam war as only a symptom of a disease that is affecting America and the American spirit. Open Document. << /Linearized 1 /L 585080 /H [ 1225 310 ] /O 55 /E 123247 /N 10 /T 584505 >> 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 . Then came the buildup in Vietnam, and I watched this 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. 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). What do they think of our condoning the violence which led to their own taking up of arms? All Rights Reserved. !1V"7AQau2TUqt#46BRrs35b$e%CSFc&d ? Therefore, communism is a judgment against our failure to make democracy real and follow through on the revolutions that we initiated. Arent you hurting the cause of your people, they ask? Please c, ontact Intellectual Properties Management (IPM), the exclusive licensor of the Estate of Martin Luther King, Jr., Inc. at. 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. This speech is not addressed to Hanoi or to the National Liberation Front. They watch as we poison their water, as we kill a million acres of their crops. 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 until the descendants of its slaves were loosed completely from the shackles they still wear. The legacy of his speech is reflected inThe Vietnam War, an 18-hour series by Ken Burns and Lynn Novick (streaming to PBS station members). King, " The Casualties of the War in Vietnam, " 25 February 1967, CLPAC. 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. Freedom's Ring: King's "I Have a Dream" Speech, Martin Luther King, Jr. - Political and Social Views. The United States was most involved in the war from 1959 to 1973 which coincided with the Civil Rights movement. Fifty years ago in 1967, Martin Luther King, Jr. gave a speech that startled even many of his supporters in the Civil Rights Movement. Surely we must understand their feelings, even if we do not condone their actions. By Matthew Hoh, Counter Punch, January 16, 2023. What then can I say to the Vietcong or to Castro or to Mao as a faithful minister of this One? Even so, the establishment considered it a shock, a disgrace. The Institute cannot give permission to use or reproduce any of the writings, statements, or images of Martin Luther King, Jr. Let us not join those who shout war . Meanwhile Meanwhile, we in the churches and synagogues have a continuing task while we urge our government to disengage itself from a disgraceful commitment. @ !V*k*im+R{Q\4b^`j+j/A8U&|NB% []Tw7L ;muR`o|?h:07o"PI'}x~@U&|NB% []Tw7L ;muR`o|?h:07o"PI'}x~@U&|NB% []Tw7L ;muR`o|?h:07o"PI'}x~@U&|NB% []Tw7L ;muR`o|?h:07o"PI'}x~@U&|NB% []Tw7L ;muR`o|?h:07o"PI'}x~@U&|NB% []Tw7L ;muR`o|?h:07o"PI'}x~@U&|NB% []Tw7L ;muR`o|?h:07o"PI'}x~@U&|NB% []Tw7L ;muR`o|?h:07o"PI'}x~@U&|NB% []Tw7L ;muR`o|?h:07o"PI'}x~@U&|NB% []Tw7L ;muR`o|?h:07o"PI'}x~@U&|NB% []Tw7L ;muR`o|?h:07o"PI'}x~@U&|NB% []Tw7L ;muR`o|?h:07o"PI'}x~@U&|NB% []Tw7L ;muR`o|?h:07o"PI'}x~@U&|NB% []Tw7L ;muR`o|?h:07o"PI'}x~@U&|NB% []Tw7L ;muR`o|?h:07o"PI'}x~@U&|NB% []Tw7L ;muR`o|?h:07o"PI'}x~@U&|NB% []Tw7L ;muR`o|?h:07o"PI'}x~@U&|NB% []Tw7L ;muR`o|?h:07o"PI'}x~@U&|NB% []Tw7L ;muR`o|?h:07o"PI'}x~@U&|NB% []Tw7L ;muR`o|?h:07o"PI'}x~@U&|NB% []Tw7L ;muR`o|?h:07o"PI'}x~@U&|NB% []Tw7L ;muR`o|?h:07o"PI'}x~@U&|NB% []Tw7L ;muR`o|?h:07o"PI'}x~@U&|NB% []Tw7L ;wap~#65UXG9tMU G^> `j+j/A9~NT de#(~y{Jtp m`j+j/A8P qGqe#(~ b_mE@ VYVQov:j}\z8M?tiiibEkF5Qup6cbczB9 uUa 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 Time to Break Silence, given at Riverside Church in New York City on April 4, 1967. King had stepped up his anti-war proclamations on February 25, 1967, when he appeared at a convention in Beverly Hills, California. Perhaps a more difficult but no less necessary task is to speak for those who have been designated as our enemies. War is not the answer. 'I Have a Dream'. Martin Luther King - Beyond Vietnam - 1967 : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive Volume 90% 00:00 51:49 Martin Luther King - Beyond Vietnam - 1967 Topics Martin Luther King, Beyond Vietnam, war, social justice, peace * Reverend Martin Luther King * Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence * April 4, 1967 * Decent Essays. This is a case of getting out of a certain frame of mind, of a way of thinking about ourselves and about the world.. They must weep as the bulldozers roar through their areas preparing to destroy the precious trees. Members get extended access to PBS video on demand and more. Before the end of the war we were meeting eighty percent of the French war costs. He drafted several speeches for King over the years and eventually became the first director of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial Center. And history is cluttered with the wreckage of nations and individuals that pursued this self-defeating path of hate. America will be! We must stop now. We were 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. We must with positive action seek to remove those conditions of poverty, insecurity, and injustice, which are the fertile soil in which the seed of communism grows and develops. 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. To King, however, the Vietnam War was only the most pressing symptom of American colonialism worldwide. Have they forgotten that my ministry is in obedience to the One who loved his enemies so fully that he died for them? Martin Luther King Beyond Vietnam. Become a member of THIRTEEN ($5 monthly or $60 annually) and get access to THIRTEEN Passport as our thanks for your support. Fall of Saigon during Vietnam War. To change course, King suggested a five point outline for stopping the war, which included a call for a unilateral ceasefire. We must find new ways to speak for peace in Vietnam and justice throughout the developing world, a world that borders on our doors. << /Type /XRef /Length 100 /Filter /FlateDecode /DecodeParms << /Columns 5 /Predictor 12 >> /W [ 1 3 1 ] /Index [ 51 91 ] /Info 74 0 R /Root 53 0 R /Size 142 /Prev 584506 /ID [] >> Will our message be that the forces of American life militate against their arrival as full men, and we send our deepest regrets? So it is that those of us who are yet determined that America will be are are led down the path of protest and dissent, working for the health of our land. She was once a tour guide in real life, too. baseball font with tail generator Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence was actually a collaborative work largely written by a close associate and friend of Martin Luther King, Jr. - Vincent Harding. Five: Set a date that we will remove all foreign troops from Vietnam in accordance with the 1954 Geneva Agreement. endobj KW;UmBkT/k_rvtg+W`Y?eeu,+I$ZkZu?I'}[fXj7vHovEwU=h.87 <3nmVG"5tU]~7M.^5CCJz4 I,lU-}*WI:quZFv%[-p+jbn ST4PS&5DF4Oxy;g '2v!l37GGDv.JKm{e.m+(k/p@ 'Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence' was delivered by Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King Jr. on April 4, 1967 at a meeting of concerned clergymen and laity at Riverside Church in New York City, New York (Spence). If Americas soul becomes totally poisoned, part of the autopsy must read: Vietnam. 825 Eighth Avenue, New York, NY 10019, WNET is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. The truth of these words is beyond doubt, but the mission to which they call us is a most difficult one. Speech by Martin Luther King, Jr. against the "triple evils of racism, economic exploitation, and militarism." Audio. Procrastination is still the thief of time. We must move past indecision to action. Rationalizations and the incessant search for scapegoats are the psychological cataracts that blind us to our sins. The belief of the clergy took the theme of silence is betrayal. However, all was not well on the ground: the country lost a Navy intelligence ship (USS Pueblo) and two << /Pages 117 0 R /Type /Catalog >> We must rapidly beginwe must rapidly begin the shift from a thing-oriented society to a person-oriented society. Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence Jim Meyer 2020, Beyond Vietnam:A Time to Break Silence Abstract "The time has come for America to hear the truth about this tragic war. 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. King, " Beyond Vietnam, " 4 April 1967, NNRC. This kind of positive revolution of values is our best defense against communism. 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? 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. King holds the U.S. government and the American people responsible for the Vietnam . 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. What do they think as we test out our latest weapons on them, just as the Germans tested out new medicine and new tortures in the concentration camps of Europe? 1. stop all bombing in Vietnam. 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. 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? Some great cause, Gods new Messiah offering each the bloom or blight, 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. 2. Martin Luther King uses persuasive argument in his speeches. Giu 11, 2022 | narcissistic withdrawal. 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. Surely we must see that our own computerized plans of destruction simply dwarf their greatest acts. . Dr. If we will make the right choice, we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our world into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. 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. And of course its always good to come back to Riverside church. endobj There is at the outset a very obvious and almost facile connection between the war in Vietnam and the struggle I, and others, have been waging in America. aYej{uOAs/9lo-6'j-gy,=F*9bt,Ukj"h jPIL 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. The world now demands a maturity of America that we may not be able to achieve. 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). There is nothing to keep us from molding a recalcitrant status quo with bruised hands until we have fashioned it into a brotherhood. The U.S. became polarized between those who advocated continued involvement in Vietnam and those who wanted peace. 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. And so, such thoughts take us beyond Vietnam, but not beyond our calling as sons of the living God. endstream In its April 7 editorial "Dr. King's Error," The New York Times lambasted King for fusing two problems that are "distinct and separate.". He that loveth not knoweth not God, for God is love. If we love one another, God dwelleth in us and his love is perfected in us. Let us hope that this spirit will become the order of the day. 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. We must speak for them and raise the questions they cannot raise. 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. 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. 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. On April 4, 1967, Martin Luther King delivered his first major public statement against the Vietnam War, entitled "Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break the Silence." Addressing a crowd of 3,000 at Riverside Church in New York City, King condemned the war as anti-democratic, impractical, and unjust. The actual speech begins at 1:41 in the recording. Communism will never be defeated by the use of atomic bombs or nuclear weapons. Violence of the US government - How can we criticize violence abroad when our own For nine years we vigorously supported the French in their abortive effort to recolonize Vietnam. I could not be silent in the face of such cruel manipulation of the poor., 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. 4. give the NLF a say in negotiations. 1968 was a turning point in U.S. history, a year of triumphs and tragedies, social and political upheavals, that forever changed our country. Communism will never be defeated by the use of atomic bombs or nuclear weapons.