beyond vietnam 7 reasons beyond vietnam 7 reasons

They must see Americans as strange liberators. The choice is ours, and though we might prefer it otherwise, we must choose in this crucial moment of human history. MLK: Beyond Vietnam to Ukraine. Giu 11, 2022 | narcissistic withdrawal. For 7 reasons: 1. They watch as we poison their water, as we kill a million acres of their crops. Cypress Hall D, 466 Via Ortega, Stanford, CA 94305-4146 Why did Rev. 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 . 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. 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? Surely we must see that the men we supported pressed them to their violence. 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. 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. 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 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. The oceans of history are made turbulent by the ever-rising tides of hate. I speak as a child of God and brother to the suffering poor of Vietnam. 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. Communism will never be defeated by the use of atomic bombs or nuclear weapons. The fall of South Vietnam. PBS talk show host Tavis. Interior of Riverside Church on W. 120th Street in Manhattan. #2 Young, Skilled Population. 56 0 obj 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. 'I Have a Dream'. In the speech at Riverside Church, King talked about how the US had supported . Good or bad, the US was afraid that communism would spread to South Vietnam and then the rest of Asia. 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 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). #6 Low Expenses. Yet that scaffold sways the future, and behind the dim unknown They ask how we can speak of free elections when the Saigon press is censored and controlled by the military junta. Freedom is still the bonus we receive for knowing the truth. 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. And of course its always good to come back to Riverside church. 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 Where are the roots of the independent Vietnam we claim to be building? #4 New Market. 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.. 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. Surely we must see that our own computerized plans of destruction simply dwarf their greatest acts. 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. We must continue to raise our voices and our lives if our nation persists in its perverse ways in Vietnam. They must weep as the bulldozers roar through their areas preparing to destroy the precious trees. We must speak for them and raise the questions they cannot raise. 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. It is not addressed to China or to Russia. Every man of humane convictions must decide on the protest that best suits his convictions, but we must all protest. We must move past indecision to action. This is a case of getting out of a certain frame of mind, of a way of thinking about ourselves and about the world.. For nine years we vigorously supported the French in their abortive effort to recolonize Vietnam. This February, the Humanities curriculum for Grade 7 is focused on the Vietnam War. 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. 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. 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). 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 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. endobj Open Document. Reverend Martin Luther King Jr.'s speech, Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence argues his stance against the government and their decisions on war. The Vietnamese people proclaimed their own independence in 1954 in 1945 rather after a combined French and Japanese occupation and before the communist revolution in China. 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. Meanwhile Meanwhile, we in the churches and synagogues have a continuing task while we urge our government to disengage itself from a disgraceful commitment. He who lives with untruth lives in spiritual slavery. Infant mortality rates fell from 32.6 per 1,000 live births in 1993 to 16.7 in 2020. It can never be saved so long as it destroys the deepest hopes of men the world over. Members get extended access to PBS video on demand and more. The pro-social justice and anti-war speech were delivered to state MLK's opposition . To Build a Mature Society: The Lasting Legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "Beyond Vietnam" Speech By Kristopher Burrell At Riverside Church in Harlem on April 4, 1967, exactly one year before his assassination, Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered a blistering and sophisticated critique of U. S. intervention in Vietnam. Shall we say the odds are too great? The AMERICAN War had come to define AMERICA in the second half of the 20th century. Both sides alleged, more or less accurately, that the other side was continuously violating the terms . This is the message of the great Buddhist leaders of Vietnam. In a way we were agreeing with Langston Hughes, that black bard of Harlem, who had written earlier: O, yes, The actual speech begins at 1:41 in the recording. It is a sad fact that because of comfort, complacency, a morbid fear of communism, and our proneness to adjust to injustice, the Western nations that initiated so much of the revolutionary spirit of the modern world have now become the arch antirevolutionaries. 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. A true revolution of values will soon look uneasily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth. 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. We were sending young Black men 8,000 miles away to die for freedoms they don't have at home. The speech titled "Beyond Vietnam" is relevant to today's war in Ukraine. However, all was not well on the ground: the country lost a Navy intelligence ship (USS Pueblo) and two Martin Luther King Jr.'s "Beyond Vietnam" was a powerful and angry speech that raged against the war. It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring. They wander into the towns and see thousands of the children, homeless, without clothes, running in packs on the streets like animals. In the mid-1950s, King led the movement to end segregation and counter prejudice in the . Here's the video. Omar Khayyam is right: The moving finger writes, and having writ moves on.. We must speak with all the humility that is appropriate to our limited vision, but we must speak. 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. We have corrupted their women and children and killed their men. I come to this platform tonight to make a passionate plea to my beloved nation. 52 0 obj King used his famous oration skills to point out the hypocrisy of U.S. foreign affairs in view of the sorry domestic state of equality in America. They watch as we poison their water, as we kill a million acres of their crops. 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. Number two: Declare a unilateral cease-fire in the hope that such action will create the atmosphere for negotiation. The world now demands a maturity of America that we may not be able to achieve. 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. 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. In the light of such tragic misunderstanding, I deem it of signal importance to try to state clearly, and I trust concisely, why I believe that the path from Dexter Avenue Baptist Church the church in Montgomery, Alabama, where I began my pastorate leads clearly to this sanctuary tonight. 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. For nine years following 1945 we denied the people of Vietnam the right of independence. Even so, the establishment considered it a shock, a disgrace. Introduction Martin Luther King, Jr in his speech "Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence" argued that US foreign policy was hypocritical when compared to the inequality present in the United States. Martin Luther King April 4, 1967 Riverside Church, New York City 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. King specified seven major reasons for brining the war to an end based on moral vision, allowing for a further tie between . Please c, ontact Intellectual Properties Management (IPM), the exclusive licensor of the Estate of Martin Luther King, Jr., Inc. at. xcbd`g`b``8 "Y& D2 IF>E0y6DrLb`] R3XM-c |)f&!ME 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. On 4 April 1967 Martin Luther King, Jr., delivered his seminal speech at Riverside Church condemning the Vietnam War.