Dr. Kings' Comments "Beyond Vietnam"
Delivered April 4, 1967
Riverside Baptist Church
New York City

Any similarities to present day Iraq?

Mr. Chairman, ladies and gentlemen, I need not pause to say how very delighted I am to be here tonight, and how very delighted I am to see you expressing your concern about the issues that will be discussed tonight by turning out in such large numbers. I also want to say that I consider it a great honor to share this program with Dr. Bennett, Dr. Commager, and Rabbi Heschel, some of the distinguished leaders and personalities of our nation. And of course it's always good to come back to Riverside Church. Over the last eight years, I have had the privilege of preaching here almost every year in that period, and it is always a rich and rewarding experience to come to this great church and this great pulpit.

I come to this magnificent house of worship tonight because my conscience leaves me no other choice. I join you in this meeting because I am in deepest agreement with the aims and work of the organization which has brought us together, Clergy and Laymen Concerned About Vietnam. The recent statements of your executive committee are the sentiments of my own heart, and I found myself in full accord when I read its opening lines: "A time comes when silence is betrayal." That time has come for us in relation to Vietnam.

The truth of these words is beyond doubt, but the mission to which they call us is a most difficult one. Even when pressed by the demands of inner truth, men do not easily assume the task of opposing their government's policy, especially in time of war. Nor does the human spirit move without great difficulty against all the apathy of conformist thought within one's own bosom and in the surrounding world. Moreover, when the issues at hand seem as perplexing as they often do in the case of this dreadful conflict, we are always on the verge of being mesmerized by uncertainty. But we must move on.

Some of us who have already begun to break the silence of the night have found that the calling to speak is often a vocation of agony, but we must speak. We must speak with all the humility that is appropriate to our limited vision, but we must speak. And we must rejoice as well, for surely this is the first time in our nation's history that a significant number of its religious leaders have chosen to move beyond the prophesying of smooth patriotism to the high grounds of a firm dissent based upon the mandates of conscience and the reading of history. Perhaps a new spirit is rising among us. If it is, let us trace its movement, and pray that our own inner being may be sensitive to its guidance. For we are deeply in need of a new way beyond the darkness that seems so close around us.

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. 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. And when I hear them, though I often understand the source of their concern, I am nevertheless greatly saddened, for such questions mean that the inquirers have not really known me, my commitment, or my calling. Indeed, their questions suggest that they do not know the world in which they live. In the light of such tragic misunderstanding, I deem it of signal importance to try to state clearly, and I trust concisely, why I believe that the path from Dexter Avenue Baptist Church -- the church in Montgomery, Alabama, where I began my pastorate -- leads clearly to this sanctuary tonight.

I come to this platform tonight to make a passionate plea to my beloved nation. This speech is not addressed to Hanoi or to the National Liberation Front. It is not addressed to China or to Russia. Nor is it an attempt to overlook the ambiguity of the total situation and the need for a collective solution to the tragedy of Vietnam. Neither is it an attempt to make North Vietnam or the National Liberation Front paragons of virtue, nor to overlook the role they must play in the successful resolution of the problem. While they both may have justifiable reasons to be suspicious of the good faith of the United States, life and history give eloquent testimony to the fact that conflicts are never resolved without trustful give and take on both sides. Tonight, however, I wish not to speak with Hanoi and the National Liberation Front, but rather to my fellow Americans.

Since I am a preacher by calling, I suppose it is not surprising that I have seven major reasons for bringing Vietnam into the field of my moral vision. 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. A few years ago there was a shining moment in that struggle. It seemed as if there was a real promise of hope for the poor, both black and white, through the poverty program. There were experiments, hopes, new beginnings. Then came the buildup in Vietnam, and I watched this program broken and eviscerated as if it were some idle political plaything of a society gone mad on war. And 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. So I was increasingly compelled to see the war as an enemy of the poor and to attack it as such.

Perhaps a more tragic recognition of reality took place when it became clear to me that the war was doing far more than devastating the hopes of the poor at home. It was sending their sons and their brothers and their husbands to fight and to die in extraordinarily high proportions relative to the rest of the population. We were taking the black young men who had been crippled by our society and sending them eight thousand miles away to guarantee liberties in Southeast Asia which they had not found in southwest Georgia and East Harlem. So we have been repeatedly faced with the cruel irony of watching Negro and white boys on TV screens as they kill and die together for a nation that has been unable to seat them together in the same schools. So we watch them in brutal solidarity burning the huts of a poor village, but we realize that they would hardly live on the same block in Chicago. I could not be silent in the face of such cruel manipulation of the poor.

My third reason moves to an even deeper level of awareness, for it grows out of my experience in the ghettos of the North over the last three years, especially the last three summers. As I have walked among the desperate, rejected, and angry young men, I have told them that Molotov cocktails and rifles would not solve their problems. I have tried to offer them my deepest compassion while maintaining my conviction that social change comes most meaningfully through nonviolent action. But they asked,

Hi, Skyy,

I am so sorry I missed this post before, but happy I found it tonight. :)  Thanks for sharing it. 

This speech captures the true essence of Dr. King, IMHO.  It moved me to tears.  It is of the same mind that I subscribe to. :) Moving, simply moving. Imagine if every church, cathedral, mosque, synagogue, etc. whose doors opened to the public fed the congregants of this food.  Wow, what a dynamic nation of people we'd be.:)  I think we do Dr. King a great disservice as missionaries for the Lord, in not keeping this very torch light burning.  I also, think we have an obligation to speak out against our own modern day Vietnam-Iraq and soon to be Iran.  Most in this forum who have interacted with me, know that I am not a supporter of this government because I feel as King did-its motive is purely selfish and offers no good for the 'common' man.  I am particularly anti-Bush and the Bush and Regan before him for the same reason.  I believe them to be anti-American, as well.  Blacks in particular and people not of their "social standings" in general.  Greed is the motive of this war and power keeps it perpetuated.  America will soon come to know the devastation of voting in such a snake in the grass!   But there is a God.:)

In the spirit of Dr. King and all of the great civil rights and Freedom fighters of the past and present, I pray God's protection for us who are aware and know.  As God moves on America and the world with His Divine destruction, let us continue to seek His refuge.  The signs are upon us, Skyy. And I know that you know. :)  Continue to watch the weather, as our focus remain a Godly one. 

Btw, thanks to you and O and all that were involved in the decision to make this the community that it is- informative, enlightening and thought provoking.  If we who share here, continue to impart the wisdom of a God honed mind and the realities of our community, negativity will vanish and the perception of our people will change for the better. :)  

Also, I applaud the idea of a Black History year!  May the focus remain for years to come.  I know you will not air only those blacks whom America considers "safe" for their consumption, but those who are not so traditional in ideology, as well. :)   In fact, I know the great Sonet will chime in.:)  And I will contribute where necessary, as well.:)

Thanks for allowing me to get on this soapbox.  I'm off for now.:)

Peace & Blessings,

Long live the spirit of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. :) 

<<... All of us keep this forum going, while God's hand guides it. >>

Nice touch Skyy.