beyond vietnam 7 reasons

This has driven many to feel that only Marxism has a revolutionary spirit. About the Sermon "Beyond Vietnam: A Time To Break Silence" The "Beyond Vietnam" sermon was drafted by historian and activist Vincent Gordon Harding. 54 0 obj 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. He knows the bombing and shelling and mining we are doing are part of traditional pre-invasion strategy. 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. Delivered in New York at the height of the Vietnam War in 1967, "Beyond Vietnam" is Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s powerful call to America to end the Vietnam War, as well as to change the. I speak as a citizen of the world, for the world as it stands aghast at the path we have taken. . 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. We will be marching for these and a dozen other names and attending rallies without end, unless there is a significant and profound change in American life and policy. Could we blame them for such thoughts? And as I ponder the madness of Vietnam and search within myself for ways to understand and respond in compassion, my mind goes constantly to the people of that peninsula. "Beyond Vietnam", Silence is Betrayal: Martin Luther King's Historic 1967 Speech Introduction by Michel Chossudovsky. Therefore the first hope in our inventory must be the hope that love is going to have the last word (unquote). 2. create an unilateral cease fire leading to peace talks. I think of them, too, because it is clear to me that there will be no meaningful solution there until some attempt is made to know them and hear their broken cries. The speech titled "Beyond Vietnam" is relevant to today's war in Ukraine. 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. Being one of the fastest-growing economies in the world, Vietnam becomes a strategic place for many foreign entrepreneurs to invest. And of course its always good to come back to Riverside church. It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring. Equally unclear is why Vietnam decided to begin accepting deportees who arrived in the United States prior to 1995. On 4 April, accompanied by Amherst College Professor Henry Commager, Union Theological Seminary President John Bennett, and Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, at an event sponsored by Clergy and Laymen Concerned about Vietnam, King spoke to over 3,000 at New Yorks Riverside Church. endobj So I was increasingly compelled to see the war as an enemy of the poor and to attack it as such.. Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence Rev. We must be prepared to match actions with words by seeking out every creative method of protest possible. Kings address emphasized his responsibility to the American people and explained that conversations with young black men in the ghettos reinforced his own commitment to nonviolence. 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. Communist China did not spread communism beyond Vietnam [Laos and Cambodia]. True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar. 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. They must weep as the bulldozers roar through their areas preparing to destroy the precious trees. Before the end of the war we were meeting eighty percent of the French war costs. Neither is it an attempt to make North Vietnam or the National Liberation Front paragons of virtue, nor to overlook the role they must play in the successful resolution of the problem. 825 Eighth Avenue, New York, NY 10019, WNET is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. America will be! They know they must move on or be destroyed by our bombs. Ho Chi Minh has watched as America has spoken of peace and built up its forces, and now he has surely heard the increasing international rumors of American plans for an invasion of the North. On 4 April 1967 Martin Luther King, Jr., delivered his seminal speech at Riverside Church condemning the Vietnam War. %# , #&')*)-0-(0%()( C Can I threaten them with death or must I not share with them my life? The world now demands a maturity of America that we may not be able to achieve. If we continue, there will be no doubt in my mind and in the mind of the world that we have no honorable intentions in Vietnam. According to the PBS documentary MLK: A Call to Conscience (2010), the speech was denounced by 168 newspapers across the country. 56 0 obj 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. Watch the Public Broadcasting Laboratory documentary Free at Last: Martin Luther King Jr. (streaming on THIRTEEN Specials), which was being filmed when Dr. King was assassinated and premiered on THIRTEEN just three days after his death. stream 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. Martin Luther King Jr.'s words of April 4, 1967, now known as the "Beyond Vietnam" speech are such words. 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. They will be concerned about Mozambique and South Africa. We must continue to raise our voices and our lives if our nation persists in its perverse ways in Vietnam. MLK: Beyond Vietnam - A Time to Break Silence The Martin Luther King, Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change 251K views 7 years ago William Pepper - The Execution of Martin Luther King. But the day has passed for superficial patriotism. both may have justifiable reason 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. I could not be silent in the face of such cruel manipulation of the poor. '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). On April 4, 1967, Martin Luther King, Jr., an enormously influential civil rights activist, conveys his indignant and hopeful thoughts regarding the Vietnam War, in his speech "Beyond Vietnam," by utilizing biblical allusion, anaphora, and use of diction. We were sending young Black men 8,000 miles away to die for freedoms they don't have at home. There is nothing to keep us from molding a recalcitrant status quo with bruised hands until we have fashioned it into a brotherhood. Christina Knight is Managing Editor of Institutional Marketing at The WNET Group. 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. And so, such thoughts take us beyond Vietnam, but not beyond our calling as sons of the living God. Let us not join those who shout war . The actual speech begins at 1:41 in the recording. He who lives with untruth lives in spiritual slavery. 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. On March 29, 1973, the last U.S. military unit left Vietnam. And when I hear them, though I often understand the source of their concern, I am nevertheless greatly saddened, for such questions mean that the inquirers have not really known me, my commitment or my calling. King followed with an historical sketch outlining Vietnams devastation at the hands ofdeadly Western arrogance,noting,we are on the side of the wealthy, and the secure, while we create a hell for the poor(King,Beyond Vietnam,146; 153). They watch as we poison their water, as we kill a million acres of their crops. They see the children degraded by our soldiers as they beg for food. We have supported the enemies of the peasants of Saigon. 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. And the choice goes by forever twixt that darkness and that light. 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. Dr. King's purpose is to make the church leaders he is speaking to aware that Freedom is still the bonus we receive for knowing the truth. 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. 9 min read. 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. 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. In its April 7 editorial "Dr. King's Error," The New York Times lambasted King for fusing two problems that are "distinct and separate.". 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. Screenshots are considered by the King Estate a violation of this notice. endobj I heard him speak so many times. When I speak of love I am not speaking of some sentimental and weak response. 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 . 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. 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 Reverend Martin Luther King Jr ., head of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, delivers a speech entitled "Beyond Vietnam" in front of 3,000 people at Riverside Church in New York. 53 0 obj What must they be thinking when they know that we are aware of their control of major sections of Vietnam, and yet we appear ready to allow national elections in which this highly organized political parallel government will not have a part? It decided to send money, supplies, and military advisers to help the South Vietnamese g. Procrastination is still the thief of time. 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. We must rapidly beginwe must rapidly begin the shift from a thing-oriented society to a person-oriented society. King views the Vietnam war as only a symptom of a disease that is affecting America and the American spirit. Have they forgotten that my ministry is in obedience to the One who loved his enemies so fully that he died for them? @ !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 Open Document. They see the children selling their sisters to our soldiers, soliciting for their mothers. Where are the roots of the independent Vietnam we claim to be building? 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. Many people believed that America had no reason to interfere, Dr. King being one of those people. Kings Error,New York Times, 7 April 1967. Is our nation planning to build on political myth again, and then shore it up upon the power of new violence? 51 0 obj 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. Nor is it an attempt to overlook the ambiguity of the total situation and the need for a collective solution to the tragedy of Vietnam. Though the cause of evil prosper, yet tis truth alone is strong Communism will never be defeated by the use of atomic bombs or nuclear weapons. They ask how we can speak of free elections when the Saigon press is censored and controlled by the military junta. Dr. 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. King enumerated seven major reasons to bring the war to an end based on moral vision. 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. JFIF C Interior of Riverside Church on W. 120th Street in Manhattan. The essence of the speech focused on the war in Vietnam. Viet Thanh Nguyen on Dr. King's 1967 speech 'Beyond Vietnam' They must see Americans as strange liberators. 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. Fifty years ago in 1967, Martin Luther King, Jr. gave a speech that startled even many of his supporters in the Civil Rights Movement. Students will read Rev. Now there is something seductively tempting about stopping there and sending us all off on what in some circles has become a popular crusade against the war in Vietnam. He stated . Helping you get here is part of her job. Did you find this entry while surfing the web? Vietnam spending eviscerated of the Poverty Program 2. On the one hand, we are called to play the Good Samaritan on lifes roadside, but that will be only an initial act. 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? 3 Pages. This speech was released by Black Foru. These are the times for real choices and not false ones. In this speech he use Logos and Pathos. The church maintains an active social justice mission today. This is the message of the great Buddhist leaders of Vietnam. We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now. 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. A true revolution of values will lay hand 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 the veins of peoples normally humane, of sending men home from dark and bloody battlefields physically handicapped and psychologically deranged, cannot be reconciled with wisdom, justice, and love. In this unfolding conundrum of life and history, there is such a thing as being too late. We must provide the medical aid that is badly needed, making it available in this country, if necessary. 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. 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. . Over the last eight years, I have had the privilege of preaching here almost every year in that period, and it is always a rich and rewarding experience to come to this great church and this great pulpit. I say it plain, 5. set a date to remove all foreign troops. Tonight, however, I wish not to speak with Hanoi and the National Liberation Front, but rather to my fellow Americans. We encouraged them with our huge financial and military supplies to continue the war even after they had lost the will. Published January 12, 2023. It is not addressed to China or to Russia. Seleziona una pagina. 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. Then we must make what reparations we can for the damage we have done. 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@ The truth of these words is beyond doubt, but the mission to which they call us is a most difficult one. We must not engage in a negative anticommunism, but rather in a positive thrust for democracy, realizing that our greatest defense against communism is to take offensive action in behalf of justice. The AMERICAN War had come to define AMERICA in the second half of the 20th century. Every nation must now develop an overriding loyalty to mankind as a whole in order to preserve the best in their individual societies. 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. Therefore, communism is a judgment against our failure to make democracy real and follow through on the revolutions that we initiated. 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. In 1957, a sensitive American official overseas said that it seemed to him that our nation was on the wrong side of a world revolution. 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. San Francisco: Canfield Press, 1971. King spoke that afternoon about 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. 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). #2 Young, Skilled Population. King, Statement on voter registration in Alabama, 9 March 1965, MLKJP-GAMK. 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. 3. 1. punished the poor. The choice is ours, and though we might prefer it otherwise, we must choose in this crucial moment of human history. Infant mortality rates fell from 32.6 per 1,000 live births in 1993 to 16.7 in 2020. 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 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. 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. It can never be saved so long as it destroys the deepest hopes of men the world over. Shall we tell them the struggle is too hard? By that time the communists and South Vietnamese were already engaged in what journalists labeled the "postwar war.". 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 . 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. Vietnam's Amended Constitution 1992 recognized the role of private sector in the economy. Zip. Love is somehow the key that unlocks the door which leads to ultimate reality. 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 fall of South Vietnam. 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. Perhaps a new spirit is rising among us. After the French were defeated, it looked as if independence and land reform would come again through the Geneva Agreement. 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. Standeth God within the shadow, keeping watch above his own. A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death. 7 reason to bring into his "moral vision". 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? 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. Some of the incidents . 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. 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. There is at the outset a very obvious and Life often leaves us standing bare, naked, and dejected with a lost opportunity. In the strife of truth and Falsehood, for the good or evil side; We have destroyed their land and their crops. King gave his most famous speech on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial at the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom on August 28, 1963 to a crowd of more than 250,000 people . In a way we were agreeing with Langston Hughes, that black bard of Harlem, who had written earlier: O, yes, 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. Now let us begin. We can no longer afford to worship the god of hate or bow before the altar of retaliation. %PDF-1.5 << /BitsPerComponent 8 /ColorSpace /DeviceRGB /ColorTransform 0 /Filter /DCTDecode /Height 609 /Subtype /Image /Type /XObject /Width 1600 /Length 68988 >> 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.