The New York Times had a great article about Martin Luther King, Jr’s 1967 speech against the war in Vietnam, broadening his concerns from civil rights to the ongoing war in Southeast Asia. At the heart of their concerns this query has often loomed large and loud: Why are … Communism will never be defeated by the use of atomic bombs or nuclear weapons. It was a blistering attack on the government’s conduct of the Vietnam War that, among other things, compared American tactics to those of the Nazis during World War II. A year later, antiwar sentiment pushed Johnson out of his re-election bid, and today we remember opposition to the war as a widespread phenomenon, so much so that Dr. King’s Riverside Church speech is often overlooked as just one more statement against an unpopular conflict. A recorded conversation between Johnson and his press secretary, George Reedy, revealed many years later Johnson’s intense agitation with this situation: Hear how LBJ sought to downplay his contact with King here: As it happened, LBJ carried the black vote by huge margins and won the white vote as well, beating Goldwater by 23 points. King choice of the word "crippled" instead of "hurt" or "held back" is an example of using loaded language. Example: Kitten My Father- Vietnam 1966 Vocabulary: (151-164) Denouncing the Vietnam War December 2, 1967 Eugene McCarthy. This speech will combine both King's speech in Los Angeles and his speech of April 4, 1976 at New York City and will be written by Wachtel and Levison on Monday, April 10, 1967. While he needed King’s behind-the-scenes help on the legislative agenda, too cozy an association in public could hurt him with the crucial white, Southern vote. The major speech at Riverside Church in New York City, followed several interviews and several other public speeches in … At Manhattan's Riverside Church. As early as the first months of 1965, even before Johnson had begun his troop buildup in Vietnam, Dr. King was calling for a negotiated settlement to the conflict, telling journalists, “I’m much more than a civil-rights leader.” But his criticism of the government’s refusal to halt widespread aerial bombing and pursue peace talks attracted little public comment until that fall, when Senator Thomas Dodd of Connecticut, a close ally of Johnson, attacked Dr. King and cited an obscure 1799 criminal statute, the Logan Act, that prohibited private citizens from interacting with foreign governments. In this belief, Johnson proved mistaken — a miscalculation that would cost him and the country dearly. King is justifying why he is speaking out against the Vietnam war. “They had a conference of preachers in Detroit. Speech on the Vietnam War, 1967 Questions 1. Three days prior he told a reporter, “We are merely marking time in the civil rights movement if we do not take a stand against the war.”, At Riverside, Dr. King told the 3,000-person overflow crowd that “my conscience leaves me no other choice” than to “break the betrayal of my own silences” over the past two years. Protests were rampant, so in this speech Nixon defended his decision to keep U.S. forces in Vietnam and explained why negotiations had failed so far. I think I have a role to play which may be unpopular,” for “I really feel that someone of influence has to say that the United States is wrong, and everybody is afraid to say it.”. How can the Vietnam war of 1967 can be any different? 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In 1952, in this city of Chicago, the Democratic party nominated as its candidate for the presidency Adlai Stevenson. King says how the poor are sent to fight for inequality and for their lives while the wealthy are at home safe from harm. … I think we thought that here was a guy who could get things done, who knew the legislative machinery of the government. When Martin Luther King Jr. Vietnam War 1967 Speech. He told Levison that “I was politically unwise but morally wise. Sign up for our daily newsletter TOP OF THE WORLD and get the big stories we’re tracking delivered to your inbox every weekday morning. In this week's issue in 1967, TIME covers Gen. Westmoreland's speech to Congress about progress being made in the Vietnam War. Recognizing what the new president could mean to the nation's poorest citizens, King was among the first to offer public support after the Dallas assassination put LBJ in the Oval Office. 2. “How is he going to afford the war abroad and the war against poverty at home at the same time?”, As LBJ ratcheted up the war, committing more troops and escalating the bombing of North Vietnam, the elephant in the room became too large to ignore. The Los Angeles speech, called “ The Casualties of the War in Vietnam, ” stressed the history of the conflict and argued that American power should be “ harnessed to the service of peace and human beings, not an inhumane power [unleashed] against defenseless people ” (King, 25 February 1967). Young's summation of what happened to LBJ in Vietnam still seems valid today. 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. “Sometimes the public is not ready to digest the truth,” he said. Dr. King then turned his full wrath against the war. His speech appears below. But no matter … Beyond signaling his growing radicalism, the Riverside speech reflected Dr. King’s increasing political courage — and shows why, half a century later, he remains a pivotal figure in American history. LBJ's War is a new, limited-edition podcast that unearths previously unheard audio that helps us better understand the course of the Vietnam War and how Lyndon Johnson found himself where he did. Young says the Democratic Party even started organizing meetings against King’s Southern Christian Leadership Council. King Jr delivered his “Beyond Vietnam — A Time to Break Silence” in 1967 in NewYork City. Every morning, the editorial team at public radio’s international news show The World meets to plan what they'll cover that day. It reflected his widening worldview that chronic domestic poverty and military adventurism overseas infected the wealthiest nation on earth just as indelibly as did deep-rooted racism. Your email address will not be published. I think someone should outline how wrong we are.” But he reluctantly agreed that he should “withdraw temporarily” from denouncing the war. War is not the answer. Both events received modest press coverage, and in their wake Dr. King told Stanley Levison, long his closest adviser: “I can no longer be cautious about this matter. Name _____Period # ____ Dates —Beginning _____Ending_____ “Speech on the Vietnam War, 1967” by M.L.King, Jr. (textbook pages 151-166) Note: Your answers should completely answer each question, or points will be deducted. In early April 1967, an influential voice was raised for the first time in opposition to the Vietnam War: Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered the most politically charged speech of his life at Riverside Church in Upper Manhattan. This article is based on LBJ's War, a podcast hosted by David Brown. So, the Johnson administration was pulling the preachers together one week and we pulled them together a month later and explained our side.”, Young says by this time, King and his allies had lost faith in Johnson. Martin Luther King Jr.. “I come to this magnificent house of … Lyndon B. Johnson. In that address, he articulated his reasons for his opposition to the Southeast Asian conflict. This source advised that Wachtel, Levison and King were in conference on April 9, 1967, concerning King's position on the Vietnam … In order to atone for our sins, we should take the initiative in bringing a halt to this tragic war.”. 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. Dr. King’s Riverside Church address exemplified how, throughout his final 18 months of life, he repeatedly rejected the sunny optimism of his 1963 “I Have a Dream” speech and instead mourned how that dream had “turned into a nightmare.” But the speech also highlighted how for Dr. King, civil rights was never a discrete problem in American society, and that racism went hand in hand with the fellow evils of poverty and militarism that kept the country from living up to its ideals. Background and Tradition of United Nations International Day of Peace, Thank you to Rhode Island Council for the Humanities, Martin Luther King, Jr’s 1967 speech against the war in Vietnam. Other civil rights leaders, who supported the war and sought to retain President Lyndon B. Johnson as a political ally, distanced themselves from Dr. King. It shows that king is serious and has a plan on what to do and is not just going in blind and unaware. The war was unpopular and seemed pointless to many. The F.B.I.’s wiretapping of his closest advisers overheard him telling them “how immoral this is. Even at the time, antiwar opposition remained politically marginal, and Dr. King’s advisers were upset over his desire to participate in a forthcoming mid-April New York protest. We use cookies to understand how you use our site and to improve your experience. David J. Garrow is the author of “Bearing the Cross: Martin Luther King Jr. and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference” and the forthcoming “Rising Star: The Making of Barack Obama.”, Your email address will not be published. Martin Luther King April 4, 1967 Riverside Church, New York City. About this speech. 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