Most people point to Dr. Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech on this day, but given the times we are in now, perhaps more apt ones to point to would be “Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence,” delivered April 4, 1967, during an appearance at a meeting of Clergy and Laity Concerned at the Riverside Church in Harlem, or “Why I Am Opposed to the War in Vietnam,” a sermon at the Ebenezer Baptist Church on April 30, 1967.
More after the jump.
“Why I Am Opposed to the War in Vietnam.”Let me say finally that I oppose the war in Vietnam because I love America. I speak out against this war, not in anger, but with anxiety and sorrow in my heart, and, above all, with a passionate desire to see our beloved country stand as the moral example of the world. I speak out against this war because I am disappointed with America. And there can be no great disappointment where there is not great love. I am disappointed with our failure to deal positively and forthrightly with the triple evils of racism, economic exploitation, and militarism. We are presently moving down a dead-end road that can lead to national disaster. America has strayed to the far country of racism and militarism.
Adam Howard, on how the candidates in 2008 presidential race have tried to sidle up to the legacy of King, but it’s pretty clear the King of 1968 is probably more radical a figure than they would want to identify with:
“Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence”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 nation’s 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. A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.
America, the richest and most powerful nation in the world, can well lead the way in this revolution of values. There is nothing except a tragic death wish to prevent us from reordering our priorities so that the pursuit of peace will take precedence over the pursuit of war. There is nothing to keep us from molding a recalcitrant status quo with bruised hands until we have fashioned it into a brotherhood.
Now, forty years after his death, it seems like almost everyone wants to claim King. Mitt Romney got himself embroiled in controversy when he claimed to have seen his father march with King as a child, only to have to later admit that he didn’t actually see anything of the sort and the “with” was most likely only in spirit as opposed to actuality.A video remix to a portion of the speech:On the Democratic side, Senators Obama and Clinton sparred when Obama tried to draw parallels between himself and King and Clinton tried to, in a characteristically self-serving way, suggest that King would not have been able to see his dream fulfilled (with the ‘64 Civil Rights Act, and’65 Voting Rights Act) if it hadn’t been for legislators like LBJ (i.e. her).
The King they all hope to be identified with is the beatific, gloriously positive King of 1963, but I am fairly certain that none of them would be as comfortable linking themselves to the irascible, fiercely antiwar and increasingly radical King of 1968.
That King would most likely have just as vociferously opposed the Iraq War today as he did the Vietnam War then. This is the King who launched a “Poor People’s Campaign,” a thoroughly progressive campaign that was considered ambitious for its time and whose job has yet to be completed in part because King was killed, but also because its goal, of organizing America’s poor to fight for economic justice with regards to both compensation and treatment, was so large that no single leader could accomplish it on their own. The “Poor People’s Campaign” extended beyond the African-American community. The goal was a “multiracial army of the poor” including whites, Native Americans, and Hispanic Americans.
16 Responses to “Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. - those other speeches”
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And of course, the people who wouldn’t listen to him then, and the intellectual heirs of such people, are the ones running the country now.
Why do we kill our visionaries and re-elect our screwups?
For that matter, not a lot of them would identify with the radicalism expressed in Letter from a Birmingham Jail. And I can’t imagine a single Republican who swears fealty to King’s dream traveling to express sympathy with striking garbage workers in the midst of a campaign (Dems maybe since organized labor is fairly important).
To Republicans King equals color-blindness and religion in politics.
To Democrats King equals political action on social issues and peaceful activism.
Neither honors his work on economic issues or his opposition to foreign adventures.
I played these to my parents, and when I started on “Beyond Vietnam” they both said they had heard it before, in 1967, in a church, in Harlem.
You just made me green with jealousy.
Do you have any of Bobby Kennedy’s speeches on Vietnam? One of the finest speakers ever to open his mouuth.
I also posted the speech against the War in Vietnam. I also posted this, because it’s worth remembering that MLK didn’t work alone. Not only was his wife beside him, be he had the power of collective action behind him.
I remember our local SDS on campus last semester began re-reading one of his speeches in a tacky Iraq War Protest. The guy introduced the speech as;
“This is written by Martin Luther King who was killed 40 years ago by secret government agents.”
Moments like that make me question my anti-war stance.
I just heard the live version of Bruce Springsteen’s “Born in the USA” not 10 minutes ago in the car. As strong and moving an anti-war anthem as the day it was first performed.
I’ve been spreading this around all day and I think it’s appropriate here
Ten OTHER things MLK said
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AIFTNmOOLmk
Moments like that make me question my anti-war stance.
You get the most bizarre activists on college campuses. Luckily most of them are also about as organized as plate of spaghetti. It sucks because then when reasonable people try to make their own points, people make them defend the stance of the whackmobiles.
Every campus I’ve ever been to had a Students Against Racism chapter, and those students were always the least capable, most ridiculous, and sometimes loudest kids on campus; meanwhile the Black club, and the Gay club, and the Whatever Else club, are looking at them and hissing, ‘dude, shut up, you’re not helping!’
Point is, just because some crazy people agree with you doesn’t make your point crazy.
Every campus I’ve ever been to had a Students Against Racism chapter, and those students were always the least capable, most ridiculous, and sometimes loudest kids on campus; meanwhile the Black club, and the Gay club, and the Whatever Else club, are looking at them and hissing, ‘dude, shut up, you’re not helping!’
One of my students last semester was part of an organization that, when ever anything happened, had as its first response, “We have to walk out and protest!” They never have an answer to: “Why is a walk out the appropriate tactic, and how does it fit into your larger strategy. In short, what do you hope to accomplish?”
blank stares.
I’m glad you guys are with me. My more moderate friends on campus look at me as if I was a sell out for pointing out that colluding with self-admitted socialists might not be the best means to get your word out.
I have about a million stories like the ones you guys mentioned.
I was once called a fascist for not thinking that Fox News should be banned off the airwaves.
I’m glad you guys are with me. My more moderate friends on campus look at me as if I was a sell out for pointing out that colluding with self-admitted socialists might not be the best means to get your word out.
I have about a million stories like the ones you guys mentioned.
I was once called a fascist for not thinking that Fox News should be banned off the airwaves.
I made a Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day video that I think EVERYONE will enjoy. It’s really short, and should put a smile on your face.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=AtugYg42mmc
Happy Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day everybody
David Spates
http://www.youtube.com/davidspates
Then there’s this:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/21/opinion/21vowell.html?ref=opinion
people so often forget that at the time of his tragic assassination, reverent dr. king was intensely involved in the fight against poverty and against the war in vietnam. this fact alone makes it so disgusting how the republicans attempt to act as if they properly represent his legacy. fuck no.
…Fox News should be banned off the airwaves.
No, but I’d love to see it either labelled as satire beforehand as not to confuse newer viewers, or put on ComedyCentral, though.
So very well worded. You did an amazing job in this article. As well as all the comments from various people. A man wrote an article about Martin Luther King Jr on www.hypocrisy.com and he captured the heart of Martin Luther King Jr. He never referred to Dr. King being a hypocrite, but the politicians of that day and today being hypocrites. This world does kill its visionaries.