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History > USA > Civil rights
Martin Luther King 1929-1968
April 4, 1967 > Vietnam speech
Dr. King writes notes before delivering his “Beyond Vietnam” speech at Riverside Church. 1967.
Photograph: The Estate of John C. Goodwin
What Martin Luther King Jr. Meant to New York By John Leland NYT Jan. 11, 2018
https://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2018/01/11
April 4, 1967
Martin Lurther King delivers his first public antiwar speech, at New York’s Riverside Church http://mlk-kpp01.stanford.edu/index.php/encyclopedia/chronologyentry/1967_04_04/
On April 4, 1967, exactly one year before his assassination, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. stepped up to the lectern at the Riverside Church in Manhattan.
The United States had been in active combat in Vietnam for two years and tens of thousands of people had been killed, including some 10,000 American troops.
The political establishment — from left to right — backed the war, and more than 400,000 American service members were in Vietnam, their lives on the line.
Many of King’s strongest allies urged him to remain silent about the war or at least to soft-pedal any criticism.
They knew that if he told the whole truth about the unjust and disastrous war he would be falsely labeled a Communist, suffer retaliation and severe backlash, alienate supporters and threaten the fragile progress of the civil rights movement.
King rejected all the well-meaning advice and said, “I come to this magnificent house of worship tonight because my conscience leaves me no other choice.”
Quoting a statement by the Clergy and Laymen Concerned About Vietnam, he said, “A time comes when silence is betrayal” and added, “that time has come for us in relation to Vietnam.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/19/
Dr. King delivered the address, known variously as “Beyond Vietnam” and “A Time to Break Silence,” in Manhattan on April 4, 1967.
“A time comes when silence is betrayal,” he said.
“And that time has come for us in relation to Vietnam.”
He added: “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.
If we do not stop our war against the people of Vietnam immediately, the world will be left with no other alternative than to see this as some horrible, clumsy and deadly game we have decided to play.”
The speech, which articulated what was then a relatively unpopular position, touched off a firestorm.
In an editorial titled “Dr. King’s Disservice to His Cause,” Life magazine called it “a demagogic slander that sounded like a script for Radio Hanoi.”
The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People described the address as “a serious tactical error.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/22/us/
https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/encyclopedia/beyond-vietnam https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/encyclopedia/vietnam-war
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/19/
https://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2018/01/11/
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/05/
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/04/
https://www.npr.org/2017/04/04/
https://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/22/
https://www.npr.org/templates/story/
https://www.npr.org/templates/story/
https://www.npr.org/templates/story/
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