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@ 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. Mandy Jackson A Time to Break Silence On April 4,1967, in Riverside Church, New York City Martin Luther King, Jr. delivers a speech called Beyond Vietnam He initiates, "War is not the answer. 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. Many people believed that America had no reason to interfere, Dr. King being one of those people. Will our message be that the forces of American life militate against their arrival as full men, and we send our deepest regrets? Then we must make what reparations we can for the damage we have done. I could not be silent in the face of such cruel manipulation of the poor. He disagreed with America going to war in Vietnam in 1955 and to voice his thoughts he wrote and delivered his speech "Beyond Vietnam- A Time to Break Silence." which took place at Riverside Church in New York City on April 4, 1967 to let his audience know that the Vietnam War is unjust. In a version of theTransformed Nonconformistsermon given in January 1966 at Ebenezer Baptist Church, King voiced his own opposition to the Vietnam War, describing American aggression as a violation of the 1954 Geneva Accord that promised self-determination. 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. After the French were defeated, it looked as if independence and land reform would come again through the Geneva Agreement. A year to the day before his assassination on April 4, 1968, in Memphis, Martin Luther King Jr. was in New York City, at the Riverside Church on Manhattan's Upper West Side, talking about Vietnam. 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. A genuine revolution of values means in the final analysis that our loyalties must become ecumenical rather than sectional. 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 * Interior of Riverside Church on W. 120th Street in Manhattan. They watch as we poison their water, as we kill a million acres of their crops. 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. In the 1967 speech, "Beyond Vietnam", the author, activist Martin Luther King jr, states reasons why America needs to end their involvement in the Vietnam War. stream Soon we would be paying almost the full costs of this tragic attempt at recolonization. Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. - April 4, 1967 - Beyond Vietnam: A Time At the time, it was most frequently used to describe public scepticism about the Lyndon B. Johnson administration's statements and policies on the Vietnam War. At the time, civil rights leaders publicly condemned him for it. 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. The Institute cannot give permission to use or reproduce any of the writings, statements, or images of Martin Luther King, Jr. Five: Set a date that we will remove all foreign troops from Vietnam in accordance with the 1954 Geneva Agreement. 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. San Francisco: Canfield Press, 1971. Viet Thanh Nguyen on Dr. King's 1967 speech 'Beyond Vietnam' Martin Luther King, Jr. makes a compelling case for the proposition that the United States' involvement in the Vietnam War is unjust using ethos (facts and commonly accepted values or ethics), pathos (appeals to emotion through powerful descriptive language), and . MLK, "Beyond Vietnam," 1967 - Massachusetts Institute of Technology "Beyond Vietnam" - Veterans of Hope 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. 'beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence' - PlatinumEssays.com The choice is ours, and though we might prefer it otherwise, we must choose in this crucial moment of human history. Omar Khayyam is right: The moving finger writes, and having writ moves on.. To change course, King suggested a five point outline for stopping the war, which included a call for a unilateral ceasefire. It is curious that the Americans, who calculate so carefully on the possibilities of military victory, do not realize that in the process they are incurring deep psychological and political defeat. 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. On March 29, 1973, the last U.S. military unit left Vietnam. 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." I speak of the for the poor of America who are paying the double price of smashed hopes at home, and death and corruption in Vietnam. 1968 was a turning point in U.S. history, a year of triumphs and tragedies, social and political upheavals, that forever changed our country. From The Vietnam War, PBS. 3. Though the cause of evil prosper, yet tis truth alone is strong It was used in journalism as a euphemism for recognized lies told to the public by . 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. 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. Vietnam spending eviscerated of the Poverty Program 2. By that time the communists and South Vietnamese were already engaged in what journalists labeled the "postwar war.". 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. Violence of the US government - How can we criticize violence abroad when our own 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? 609 Words. They move sadly and apathetically as we herd them off the land of their fathers into concentration camps where minimal social needs are rarely met. I say it plain, Over the bleached bones and jumbled residues of numerous civilizations are written the pathetic words, Too late. There is an invisible book of life that faithfully records our vigilance or our neglect. Have they forgotten that my ministry is in obedience to the One who loved his enemies so fully that he died for them? 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. These, too, are our brothers. Some of the incidents . Surely we must see that the men we supported pressed them to their violence. 5 steps to get out of Vietnam. So, too, with Hanoi. The neo-gothic Riverside Church in New York City has a long history of progressive leaders and activism, dating back to its opening in October, 1930. Here's the essay I wrote in the video: In the speech "Beyond Vietnam - A Time to Break Silence," Dr. Rev. America, the richest and most powerful nation in the world, can well lead the way in this revolution of values. 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. A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death. << /BitsPerComponent 8 /ColorSpace /DeviceRGB /ColorTransform 0 /Filter /DCTDecode /Height 609 /Subtype /Image /Type /XObject /Width 1600 /Length 68988 >> We have destroyed their two most cherished institutions: the family and the village. Let us not join those who shout war . 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.. Perhaps a more difficult but no less necessary task is to speak for those who have been designated as our enemies. We can no longer afford to worship the god of hate or bow before the altar of retaliation. Dr. King's purpose is to make the church leaders he is speaking to aware that A true revolution of values will soon look uneasily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth. 9 min read. 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. Tax ID: 26-2810489. Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence - Wikipedia Get a roundup of broadcast and digital premieres, special offers, and events with our weekly newsletter. True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar. 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. So, I was increasingly compelled to see the war as an enemy of the poor and to attack it as such. Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. - April 4, 1967 - Beyond Vietnam: A Time Vietnam's universal health coverage index is at 73higher than regional and global averageswith 87 percent of the population covered. 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. Open Document. I heard him speak so many times. The Story Of King's 'Beyond Vietnam' Speech : NPR And yet I swear this oath Tonight, however, I wish not to speak with Hanoi and the National Liberation Front, but rather to my fellow Americans. To King, however, the Vietnam War was only the most pressing symptom of American colonialism worldwide. 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. 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. The Speech "Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence" by Martin Luther 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. According to a recent report by Transparency International, Vietnam's corruption levels significantly decreased in 2021, down to 87th most corrupt from 104th in 2020. This kind of positive revolution of values is our best defense against communism. I speak as a citizen of the world, for the world as it stands aghast at the path we have taken. He who lives with untruth lives in spiritual slavery. Harding recalled in an interview with Tavis Smiley, Free at Last: Martin Luther King Jr. (streaming on THIRTEEN Specials). 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. They will be concerned about Mozambique and South Africa. Why is the South China Sea contentious? - BBC News "Beyond Vietnam", Silence is Betrayal: Martin Luther King's Historic Dr. Martin Luther King's 'Beyond Vietnam' Speech - HistoryNet PDF Martin Luther King, Jr. - The Abraham Lincoln Brigade Archives 55 0 obj !1V"7AQau2TUqt#46BRrs35b$e%CSFc&d ? But the day has passed for superficial patriotism.