beyond vietnam 7 reasons beyond vietnam 7 reasons

We have destroyed their land and their crops. 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. 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. Yet that scaffold sways the future, and behind the dim unknown Dr. King's purpose is to make the church leaders he is speaking to aware that 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. Notably, the economy grew at an average annual rate of 7.5% in 1991-2000 period. endobj Even so, the establishment considered it a shock, a disgrace. King, " The Casualties of the War in Vietnam, " 25 February 1967, CLPAC. Hanoi remembers how our leaders refused to tell us the truth about the earlier North Vietnamese overtures for peace, how the president claimed that none existed when they had clearly been made. << /Filter /FlateDecode /S 163 /Length 230 >> MLK's Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence. I am pleased to say that this is a path now chosen by more than seventy students at my own alma mater, Morehouse College, and I recommend it to all who find the American course in Vietnam a dishonorable and unjust one. They ask how we can speak of free elections when the Saigon press is censored and controlled by the military junta. Communist China did not spread communism beyond Vietnam [Laos and Cambodia]. . 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. 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. One of Martin Luther King Jr.'s lesser known yet equally impactful speeches, "Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence," condemns the violence and atrocities committed by the U.S against the Vietnamese in their foolish bid to stop the spread of communism in Southeast Asia. We encouraged them with our huge financial and military supplies to continue the war even after they had lost the will. P: (650) 723-2092 | F: (650) 723-2093 | kinginstitute@stanford.edu| Campus Map. For nine years we vigorously supported the French in their abortive effort to recolonize Vietnam. 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. About the Sermon "Beyond Vietnam: A Time To Break Silence" The "Beyond Vietnam" sermon was drafted by historian and activist Vincent Gordon Harding. 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. Life expectancy rose from 70.5 to 75.5 years between 1990 and 2020. Even before the French were defeated at Dien Bien Phu, they began to despair of their reckless action, but we did not. 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. He who lives with untruth lives in spiritual slavery. I speak now not of the soldiers of each side, not of the ideologies of the Liberation Front, 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. Now let us begin. 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. Infant mortality rates fell from 32.6 per 1,000 live births in 1993 to 16.7 in 2020. A true revolution of values will soon look uneasily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth. We were sending young Black men 8,000 miles away to die for freedoms they don't have at home. Though the cause of evil prosper, yet tis truth alone is strong 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. 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). Moreover, I would encourage all ministers of draft age to give up their ministerial exemptions and seek status as conscientious objectors. Therefore the first hope in our inventory must be the hope that love is going to have the last word (unquote). His speech appears below. 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. Dr. King choose to speak out against the war in Vietnam? To speak for them is to explain this lack of confidence in Western words, and especially their distrust of American intentions now. 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. 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. 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. In this unfolding conundrum of life and history, there is such a thing as being too late. King told reporters on Face the Nation that as a minister he hada prophetic functionand asone greatly concerned about the need for peace in our world and the survival of mankind, I must continue to take a stand on this issue(King, 29 August 1965). Interior of Riverside Church on W. 120th Street in Manhattan. Iv?'WK4(WUx:mEc>Z:ShY| x_5i_TVov8mTS&YG=^mDHrUrrEWjTTSVSHM]A"mYq-,Hkjf^\@&` |\.xz][WjG9'*&WOyeV_5i#>Z:ShY| x_5igZfS_;nC5. And the choice goes by forever twixt that darkness and that light. 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. True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar. 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. 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. We have corrupted their women and children and killed their men. 5. set a date to remove all foreign troops. 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. It decided to send money, supplies, and military advisers to help the South Vietnamese g. 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. The world now demands a maturity of America that we may not be able to achieve. King,The Casualties of the War in Vietnam,25 February 1967, CLPAC. Viet Thanh Nguyen on Dr. King's 1967 speech 'Beyond Vietnam' aYej{uOAs/9lo-6'j-gy,=F*9bt,Ukj"h jPIL This February, the Humanities curriculum for Grade 7 is focused on the Vietnam War. Vietnam's universal health coverage index is at 73higher than regional and global averageswith 87 percent of the population covered. 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 The most serious trouble in recent decades has flared between Vietnam and China, and there have also been stand-offs between the Philippines and China. I say we must enter that struggle, but I wish to go on now to say something even more disturbing. When we ask why they do not leap to negotiate, these things must be remembered. These are days which demand wise restraint and calm reasonableness. They must weep as the bulldozers roar through their areas preparing to destroy the precious trees. The United States got involved in the Vietnam War because they wanted to stop the spread of communism. I am speaking of that force which all of the great religions have seen as the supreme unifying principle of life. We are now faced with the fact, my friends, that tomorrow is today. Published January 12, 2023. 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 Im speaking against the war. This kind of positive revolution of values is our best defense against communism. 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. endobj It is not addressed to China or to Russia. These words, spoken exactly one year to the day before his assassination . 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. Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence was delivered by Martin Luther King Jr., on April 4, 1967, at a meeting of concerned clergy and laity at Riverside Church in New York City, New York. Martin Luther King, Jr., giving his speech Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence at Riverside Church in NYC, April 4, 1967. Regarding choosing Beyond Vietnam for the title when the country was deep in the middle of the war, Harding recalled in an interview with Tavis Smiley, this is more than a simple case of getting out of Vietnam. Now let us rededicate ourselves to the long and bitter, but beautiful, struggle for a new world. They know they must move on or be destroyed by our bombs. PBS talk show host Tavis. 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. Now they languish under our bombs and consider us, not their fellow Vietnamese, the real enemy. The AMERICAN War had come to define AMERICA in the second half of the 20th century. !1V"7AQau2TUqt#46BRrs35b$e%CSFc&d ? Martin Luther King Jr. was a Nobel Peace Prize laureate who embraced nonviolence to combat the country's most violent segregationists. 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 . Please c, ontact Intellectual Properties Management (IPM), the exclusive licensor of the Estate of Martin Luther King, Jr., Inc. at. ZIP FILE INCLUDES: 4 page worksheet with MLK's "Beyond Vietnam" Speech (PDF)Worksheet Answer KeyTeacher directions with ideas for useCHECK OUT THE . 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 a hell for the poor. Shall we say the odds are too great? The Americans are forcing even their friends into becoming their enemies. We have cooperated in the crushing in the crushing of the nations only non-Communist revolutionary political force, the unified Buddhist Church. 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 hundred rather, eight thousand miles away from its shores. If Americas soul becomes totally poisoned, part of the autopsy must read: Vietnam. Standeth God within the shadow, keeping watch above his own. Perhaps a 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.