Reading the words of Martin Luther King, Jr.

 

                       

 By Reginald Johnson

 

  NEW HAVEN, CT ---- The annual reading of  Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s great anti-war speech “Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break the Silence,” will take place tomorrow in City Hall.

  The reading, sponsored by several peace organizations, will be held at 12 noon on the second floor of City Hall, 165 Church Street.

  Wednesday is the anniversary of Dr. King’s birthday. The nation officially observes King’s birthday on Monday, January 20.

 In the speech, given on April 4, 1967 before an audience of 3,000 people at the Riverside Church in New York City, the civil rights leader came out strongly against the war in Vietnam and condemned US militaristic policies around the world. He deplored the fact that the country was spending so much money on war while ignoring crumbling cities and poor people at home.

 “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.

  A number of leaders and pundits at the time denounced King for his criticism of the Vietnam War (in which the US had been fighting communist guerillas for several years resulting in hundreds of thousands of casualties) and said that he had ruined his legacy as a civil rights leader by venturing into foreign affairs.

 But in his speech King said memorably, “There comes a time when silence is betrayal. And that time has come for us in relation to Vietnam.”

 Exactly one year after King spoke those words, he was assassinated in Memphis Tennessee.

 The public reading of Dr. King’s speech is taking place as the United States is again involved in wars overseas even though these wars are considered so-called “proxy wars” where the United States does not actually have troops on the ground. But the US is still spending hundreds of billions dollars to fund the two countries fighting the wars.

 In Gaza, Israel is waging a genocidal attack on Palestinians and in Ukraine, that nation is locked in a now three-year-old conflict with Russia.

  The war in Gaza, by all accounts, has triggered a humanitarian disaster for civilians. Some 45,000 people have been killed, according to official estimates. But many experts believe that figure is much higher and the real total is over 200,000 deaths. Infrastructure has been devastated with hospitals, schools and residences bombed or burned to the ground.

  Thousands have been displaced and are living in tents. Heavy rains and freezing temperatures have created intolerable living conditions and a number of children have frozen to death. Human rights observers claim Israel has conducted a systematic campaign to wreck Gaza’s health care system with the destruction of medical facilities and doctors and staff shot or abducted.

 Hunger is widespread in Gaza with the Israeli military blocking the entry of aid convoys.

 A flier put out by the organizers of the reading in New Haven said, “On the anniversary of Martin Luther King Junior’s birth, we refuse to stand by and allow tens of thousands of our fellow human beings to be flooded, frozen and burned alive by Israel and the US, as if their lives meant nothing.  We join millions in the US and throughout the world demanding a permanent cease-fire and massive humanitarian aid be allowed to enter Gaza.”

 The Greater New Haven Peace Council, Veterans for Peace, the New Haven Peace Commission and the Connecticut Peace and Solidarity Coalition are sponsoring the public reading.

 For more information, email grnhpeacecouncil@gmail.com

 

  

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.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Public reading of King's "Beyond Vietnam" speech

   

   By Reginald Johnson

 

   The Greater New Haven Peace Council will sponsor a community reading of the Rev. Martin Luther King’s famed “Beyond Vietnam" speech on Friday Jan. 13 at New Haven City Hall.

 King’s address on April, 4, 1967 at the Riverside Church in New York City was the moment when the civil rights leader decided to come out against the Vietnam War and condemn America’s militaristic policies abroad.

  “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,” King said.

  “So I was increasingly compelled to see the war as an enemy of the poor and to attack it as such.”

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

   The community reading of King’s address comes just weeks after Congress and President Biden approved a record $858 billion for the military budget. Defense spending takes up well over half of the total federal discretionary budget.

 The New Haven event also takes place as the deadly and highly costly Ukraine-Russia war continues. There have been more than 200,000 casualties in that conflict which shows no signs of letting up. The United States has given more than $100 billion in military aid to Ukraine.

  Many observers have expressed the concern that the longer the war drags on without a diplomatic settlement, the chances grow that tactical nuclear weapons might be used on the battlefield by either Ukraine or Russia. Such an event could then escalate to a nuclear war between the United States and Russia.

  Rev. King’s opposition to the Vietnam War angered some people who thought that the civil rights leader had overstepped his bounds by speaking out about foreign affairs. King was assassinated in Memphis exactly one year to the day after his speech at the Riverside Church.

(The community reading of “Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break the Silence” will take place at 12 noon on the second floor of New Haven City Hall at 165 Church Street.  More information can be obtained by contacting the peace council at grnhpeacecouncil@gmail.com)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  King said when he had counseled poor black youth in the cities against resorting to violence to achieve political change . he had been challenged.

  “”But they ask --- and rightly so

Seeking truth in the murder of Dr. King

By Reginald Johnson

     As the nation marks the 51st anniversary of Martin Luther King’s assassination, a  newly-formed committee of journalists, historians, lawyers, artists and King family members and advisors are questioning the official story about who killed the civil rights leader, and demanding a new investigation.

   The “Truth and Reconciliation Committee” has started a campaign to build support for a new probe into King’s murder, which took place on April 4, 1968,  as well the other high-profile assassinations of the 1960s, of President John F. Kennedy, Sen. Robert F. Kennedy and Malcolm X.

   The government’s conclusion in the King case --- that James Earl Ray was solely responsible for killing King … has been widely disputed over the years.

  In 1999, a civil jury ruled in favor of a wrongful death lawsuit brought by the King family, which charged that Ray was part of a conspiracy to kill Martin Luther King, involving local and federal law enforcement officials and organized crime.

 Following the verdict, Coretta Scott King, the slain leader’s widow, stated: “There is abundant evidence of a major, high-level conspiracy in the assassination of my husband.”  The jury in the Memphis trial determined that various federal, state and local agencies “were deeply involved in the assassination … Mr. Ray was set up to take the blame.”

 The Justice Department immediately discounted the finding in the trial, and major media downplayed the verdict.

  David Talbot, the founder of Salon.com and a driving force behind establishing the Truth and Reconciliation Committee, said it is high time to expose the real truth behind the assassinations of the 60s, which saw four charismatic leaders --- all of whom sought major changes in US domestic and foreign policy--- taken out.

   “Our goal is to gather signatures from as many Americans as possible over the next year — an educational campaign that will culminate in the late fall with a major public inquest on the four assassinations. This public tribunal will hear testimony from living witnesses, family members and close associates of the victims, legal authorities, historians and other experts on these epic crimes,” said Talbot on the committee’s Facebook page.

 “The goal is to finally expose the full truth about this dark chapter of American history, and by doing so, come to a shared understanding of our past and a new awareness of what we must do to protect democracy today,” he said.

Martin Luther King giving his "Beyond Vietnam" speech at the Riverside church in New York on April 4, 1967. He was murdered exactly one year later.   (Photo-sfbayview.com)

  The joint statement made by committee members — which was co-written by Adam Walinsky, a speechwriter and top aide of Senator Kennedy — declares that these “four major political murders traumatized American life in the 1960s and cast a shadow over the country for decades thereafter. John F. Kennedy, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy were each in his own unique way attempting to turn the United States away from war toward disarmament and peace, away from domestic violence and division toward civil amity and justice. Their killings were together a savage, concerted assault on American democracy and the tragic consequences of these assassinations still haunt our nation.”

 A spokesman said The Truth and Reconciliation Committee views its joint statement as “the opening of a long campaign aimed at shining a light on dark national secrets. As the public transparency campaign proceeds, citizens across the country will be encouraged to add their names to the petition. The national effort seeks to confront the forces behind America’s democratic decline, a reign of secretive power that long precedes the recent rise of authoritarianism”

   Signers of the joint statement include Isaac Newton Farris Jr., nephew of Reverend King and past president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference; Reverend James M. Lawson Jr., a close collaborator of Reverend King; and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, children of the late senator.

Other signatories include G. Robert Blakey, the chief counsel of the House Select Committee on Assassinations, which determined in 1979 that President Kennedy was the victim of a probable conspiracy; Dr. Robert McClelland, one of the surgeons at Parkland Memorial Hospital in Dallas who tried to save President Kennedy’s life and saw clear evidence he had been struck by bullets from the front and the rear; Daniel Ellsberg, the Pentagon Papers whistleblower who served as a national security advisor to the Kennedy White House; Richard Falk, professor emeritus of international law at Princeton University and a leading global authority on human rights; Hollywood artists Alec Baldwin, Martin Sheen, Rob Reiner and Oliver Stone; political satirist Mort Sahl; and musician David Crosby.

The declaration is also signed by numerous historians, journalists, lawyers and other experts on the four major assassinations.

  The committee is also calling for Congress to establish firm oversight on the release of all government documents related to the Kennedy presidency and assassination, as mandated by the JFK Records Collection Act of 1992.  “This public transparency law has been routinely defied by the CIA and other federal agencies. The Trump White House has allowed the CIA to continue its defiance of the law, even though the JFK Records Act called for the full release of relevant documents in 2017,” the spokesman said.

   The Truth and Reconciliation Committee is modeled after the public hearings in South Africa after the fall of the apartheid regime.

(For more information on the Truth and Reconciliation Committee go to their Facebook page of the same name)