Martin Luther King, Jr.: Turn away from war

By Reginald Johnson 

 

 

    NEW HAVEN --- Most people remember Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr as a great civil rights leader who helped end segregation in the South and bring about a greater level of racial equality in our society. 

 What is not as well known is that King was a peace advocate who spoke out strongly against the Vietnam War and militarism in general the last two years of his life.

  He expressed that opposition eloquently in a speech at the Riverside Church in New York City on April 4, 1967. The address was entitled “Beyond Vietnam --- A Time to Break Silence.”

It was in that speech that King outlined why he decided to expand his focus from civil rights work --- for which he had won wide acclaim --- and take the risky step of  protesting a war which was backed by the media, the foreign policy establishment and most of the American people.

  “There comes a time when silence is betrayal,” he told the more than 3,000 people gathered at the church. “And that time has come for us in relation to Vietnam.”

 In the speech King condemned the violence of the war in Southeast Asia which he said was harming both the peasants of Vietnam but also destroying the lives of young Americans, particularly black and brown youth. He also deplored the fact that so much money was being spent on war which could have been spent on rebuilding cities in the United States and improving the lives of the poor.

He called for a “revolution of values” ---  turning away from violence and military interventions.

 “A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death,” he said.

 As they have done for many years, New Haven-area residents took part in a community reading of  the “Beyond Vietnam” speech at New Haven City Hall on Friday, Jan. 12, two days prior to the official observance of  Dr. King’s birthday.

  About 30 people attended the event, with 20 reading portions of the speech.

The community reading of "Beyond Vietnam" in New Haven.

 The reading took on extra significance this year because another violent war, also backed by the United States, is going on in Palestine. The nation of Israel, using billions of dollars in American aid, has been conducting a brutal attack against the people of Gaza, with an estimated 30,000 people now dead and residential buildings and schools lying in ruin.

 Nearly 2 million people have been displaced and hundreds of thousands are in danger of starvation, according to the UN.

 A number of human rights experts maintain that Israel is now conducting a genocide against the people of Palestine and that the United States is a party to this crime.

The nation of South Africa is now lodging charges of genocide against Israel at the International Court of Justice.

  “Martin Luther King said war is the enemy of the poor. He saw us engaged in endless wars and he talked about how if we don’t stop Vietnam we would continue fighting endless wars and protesting more wars” said Henry Lowendorf,  of the Greater New Haven peace Council, which helped sponsor the community reading.

  Lowendorf  added,  “There’s just so many aspects of this speech that resonate with what’s going on today and particularly because as we see this slaughter of Palestinians --- a real genocide that Israeli leaders are promoting, they talk about it, an ethnic cleansing … They are doing everything they can to drive them out of their homeland, continually, repeatedly. And we have a government (here) that is supporting them. We have a government that is making it possible.”

 Lowendorf continued, “Martin Luther King talked about the starvation of the poor. The poor in Vietnam, but also the poor in the United States. There are just too many ways you can map what Martin Luther King was talking about on today’s situation…You can take the speech transform a few words and it would be so appropriate.”

     

Twenty people took part in reading Dr. King's speech from 1967 in which he condemned the Vietnam War and US militarism

   Some notable excerpts of the “Beyond Vietnam” speech read in New Haven:

 “Somehow this madness must cease. We must stop now. I speak as a child of God and brother to the suffering poor of Vietnam. I speak for those whose land is being laid waste, whose homes are being destroyed, whose culture is being subverted. I speak of the the poor of America for paying the double price of smashed hopes at home, and death and corruption in Vietnam. I speak as a citizen of the world, for the world as it stands aghast at the path we have taken. I speak as one who loves America, to the leaders of our own nation: the great initiative in this war is ours; the initiative to stop it must be ours.”

  Speaking about interventions by the US in various parts of the globe to maintain stability for economic investments, King said, “It is with such activity in mind that the words of the late John F. Kennedy come back to haunt us. 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. I am convinced that if we are to get on the right side of the world revolution, we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. We must rapidly begin to shift from a thing-oriented society to a person- oriented society. When machines and computers, profit motives, and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, extreme nationalism and militarism are incapable of being conquered.”

“A true revolution of values will soon look uneasily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth. With righteous indignation, it will look across the seas and see individual capitalists of the West investing huge sums of money in Asia, Africa and South America, only to take the profits out with no concern for the social betterment of the countries, and say “this is not just.” It will look at our alliance with the landed gentry of South America and say, “this is not just.” The Western arrogance of feeling that it has everything to teach others and nothing to learn from them is not just.”

  At the beginning of the speech, King told his audience that when he began to speak out against the Vietnam War, he was questioned by many about the wisdom of his path.

  “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 don’t mix,” they say. “Aren’t you hurting the cause of your people?” they ask.

  Despite the critics, King would not be deterred and kept up his opposition to the war, which by 1967 had killed hundreds of thousands of people, both Americans and Vietnamese. It had laid waste to the Vietnamese countryside from constant bombing and the use of the deadly herbicide, “Agent Orange.”

  The Vietnam War, he felt, stood against everything that he had devoted his life to as a Christian pastor, to create a more loving and just society.

 In the spring of 1967 he was invited by “Clergy and Laymen Concerned about Vietnam” a group that was similarly opposed to the war, to speak at the Riverside Church.

  The “Beyond Vietnam” speech was not well received by major media at the time.

  According to the Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute at Stanford University, “Both the Washington Post and the New York Times published editorials criticizing the speech, with the Post noting that King’s speech had ‘diminished the usefulness of his cause, to his country, and to his people.’ through a simplistic and flawed view of the situation.”

  But over time the address given at the Riverside Church has come to be viewed as perhaps King’s greatest speech, surpassing in importance the “I Have a Dream” speech given during the March on Washington in 1963.

 This year’s community reading of “Beyond Vietnam” honored Al Marder, a long-time peace and justice advocate from New Haven who passed away recently. Lowendorf  said Marder had been “one of the initiators of this tradition and many others.”