Beyond Vietnam; Martin Luther King, Jr. speech, part two

Far from his view. We may indeed see the basic weaknesses of our own condition and if we are mature. We may learn and grow and profit from the wisdom of the brothers who will call the opposition. So too with no i. And the North is now pummeled by land and our minds endangered the waterways. We met by deep but understandable mistrust to speak for them is to explain this lack of confidence in western words and especially that distrust of American intentions now. And I had no eye on the man who led the nation to independence against the Japanese and the French. The man who sought membership in the French Commonwealth and were betrayed by the weakness of powers and the will of the colonial armies. It was they who led a second struggle against French

domination at tremendous cost and then well persuaded to give up the land they control between the 13th and 17th power as a temporary measure at Geneva. After 1954 they watched us conspire with DMN to prevent elections which could have surely brought Holcim into power. Over a united Vietnam. They realize they had been betrayed again. When we ask why they do not to negotiate these things must be remembered. Also it must be clear that the leader had not considered the presence of American troops in support of the DMN regime to have been the initial military breach of the Geneva agreements concerning foreign troops. And they remind us that they did NOT began to send troops in large numbers and even supplied them to the south.

Until American forces had moved into the tens of thousands. And nor remembers how leaders refused to tell us the truth about the early North Vietnamese overtures for peace. How the president claimed that non existed when they had clearly been made has watched as America has spoken of peace and built up its forces. He has surely heard the increasing international rumors of American plans for an invasion of the north. You know the bombing and shelling and mining we're doing a pot of traditional pre-invasion strategy perhaps only his sense of humor and can save him when he is the most powerful nation of the world. Speaking of aggression as it drops thousands of bombs on a poor weak nation more than

800 rather 8000 away from it show us. At this point I should make it clear that while I have tried in these last few minutes to give a voice to the boss listen. I do understand those who will call in and I am as deeply concerned about our own troops that as anything else. It occurred to me that what we are submitting them to in Vietnam is not simply the brutalizing process that goes on in his face each other and seek to destroy. We adding Senates ism to the process of death. They must know after this short period. That none of the things we claim to be fighting for are really involved. Before long they must know that that government has sent them into a struggle among Vietnamese.

The more sophisticated. Sure they realize that we are on the side of the wealthy. And the secure. While we create a hell for the poor. Somehow this madness must see we must stop now. I speak as a child of God. And brother to the suffering poor to Vietnam. I speak for those whose land is being laid waste. Whose homes are being destroyed. Whose coach it is being subverted. I speak speak for the poor of America who are paying the double price of smashed hopes at home. And death and corruption in Vietnam I speak as a citizen of the. Other world as it stands the gas at the path we have taken. I speak as one who loves America. Two of the leaders of our own nation

the great initiative and as well as ours the initiative to stop it must be ours. This is the message of the great Buddhist leaders of Vietnam. Recently one of them wrote these words and I quote Each day the wall goes on the hatred increases and the heart of the Vietnamese and in the hearts of the humanitarian instinct. The Americans are forcing even their friends into becoming enemies. It is curious that the Americans who calculate so Caffe on the possibility of a military victory are not to realize that in the process and card carrying deep psychological and political defeat. The image of America will never again be the image of revolution freedom and democracy.

But damage of militarism if we continue would be no doubt in my mind and in the mind of the world. We have no honorable intention 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 world of America that we may not be able to achieve it demands that we admit that we have been wrong from the beginning. But it ventured in Vietnam. That we have been detrimental to the life of the Vietnamese people. The situation is one in which we must be ready to turn sharply from our present ways in order to atone for sin and error as in Vietnam we should take the

initiative in bringing a halt to this tragic war. I would like to suggest five concrete things that our government should do immediately began the long and difficult process extricate in sales from this nightmarish conflict number one to end all bombing in North and South Vietnam. Number two to clatter a unit a unilateral cease fire and the hope that such action will create the atmosphere for negotiation. 3 take immediate steps to prevent other battlegrounds in Southeast Asia by Kurt Elling military build up in Thailand and interference in Laos. Realistically accept the fact that the National Liberation Front. Has substantial support in South Vietnam and must play a role in any meaningful negotiations and in a future

government. I've set a date that we will remove all of foreign troops from Vietnam in accordance with the nineteen fifty four Geneva agreement part of our ongoing. Part of our ongoing commitment might well express itself in an offer to grant asylum to end of Vietnamese who fears for his life under the new regime which included the Liberation Front. Then we must make what reparations we can for the damage we have done. We must provide the medical aid that is badly needed making it available in this country didn't necessarily mean. Meanwhile we end the churches and synagogues.

Have a continuing task. While our government to disengage itself from a disgraceful commitment. We must continue to raise our voices and. If the nation persists in its various ways in Vietnam we must be prepared to mak actions with words by seeking out every creative method of protest possible. As we count young men concerning military service we must clarify for them nation's role in Vietnam. And challenge them with the alternative of conscientious objection. I am pleased to say that this is a path chosen by more than

70 students at my alma mater Morehouse College and I recommend it to all who find the American cause in Vietnam a dishonorable and unjust one. I would encourage all ministers of draft age to give up that ministerial exemptions and seek status as a conscientious objector. These are the times for real. Show us is a false one. We are at the moment when lies must be placed on the law and the foundation is to survive its own folly. Every man of humane convictions must decide on the protests that best suits his

convictions. But we must all protests. Now that is something. Seductive tempting about stopping. And sending us all on what in some circles has become a popular crusade against the war in Vietnam. I say we must end of that struggle. But I wish to go on to say something even more disturbing. The war in Vietnam. Is but a symptom of a far deeper malady within the American spirit. And if we ignore this sobering reality. And if we ignore this sobering reality we will find ourselves all going izing clergy and laymen concerned commit is for the next generation they will be concerned about Guatemala Guatemala and Peru.

They would be concerned about Thailand and Cambodia they would be concerned about Mozambique and South Africa. We would be marching for these and a dozen other names and attending rallies without and unless that is a significant and profound change in American life and policy. Thank you. Thought. So such thoughts take us Beyond Vietnam but not beyond our calling as sons of the Living God. In 1957 a sensitive American official overseas said that it seemed to him that our nation was on the wrong side of the world revolution.

During the past 10 years we have seen emerge a pattern of suppression which has now justified the presence of U.S. military advisers in Venezuela there's a need to maintain social stability for investment accounts for the counter revolution Aarakshan of American forces and Guatemala. It tells us why American helicopters are being used against guerrillas in Cambodia and why American napalm and Green Beret forces have already been active against the rebels in Peru. 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. Increasing there by choice all by accident.

This is a role our nation has taken and the role of those who make peaceful revolution impossible by refusing to give up the privileges and the pleasures that come from the immense profit of overseas investments. I am convinced that if we want to get on the right side of the revolution we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. We must rapidly began. We most rapidly began 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 materialism and militarism are incapable of being conquered. A true revolution of values. Will soon cause us to

question the fatness and justice of many of our past and present policies. On the one hand we are called to play the Good Samaritan on life's roads. Dad would be only an initial act. One day we must come to see that the whole Jericho Road must be transformed so the men and women will not be constantly beaten and robbed as they make that journey on lies highway. True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a bag. It comes to see that an edifice which produces bad guys needs restructuring. True revolution of value look easy on the devouring contrast of poverty and

well with the righteous indignation it will look across the seas and see individual capitalists of the West investing you of money in Asia Africa and South America. I wanted to take the profits out with no concern for the social betterment of the countries and say this is not just it. Look at our alliance with the landed gentry of South America and say this is not just Western arrogance of feeling that it has everything to teach others and nothing to learn from them is not just a true revolution of value as well lay a hand on the world and say of war there is a way of settling differences. It is not just this business of burning human beings with napalm. Failing on nation's homes with off friends and widow of injecting poisonous drugs of

hate into the veins of people is an anomaly humane sending men home from dark and bloody battlefields physically handicapped and psychologically led to rain cannot be reconciled with wisdom justice and. 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. Rich is an most powerful nation in the world. And well lead the way in this revolution of values that is nothing except a tragic death wish to prevent us from

reauthorizing our priorities so that the pursuit of peace will take precedence over the pursuit of war. There's nothing to keep us from molding the recalcitrant status quo with a bruised hand until we have fashioned it into a brotherhood. This kind of positive revolution of values is our best defense against communism. It was not the end so. Communism will never be defeated by the use of atomic bombs and nuclear weapons. Let us not join those who shout War and through them misguided passions urge the United States to relinquish its participation in the United Nations these days which demand wise restraint and calm reasonableness. We must not engage in a negative anti communism but rather in a positive thrust from democracy.

Realizing that ah greatest defense against communism is to take offensive action in behalf of justice. We must with positive action seek to remove those conditions of poverty insecurity and injustice which are the fertile soil in which the seed of communism grows and develops. These revolutionary time all over the globe men are revolting against old systems of exploitation and oppression. And out of the wombs of a frail world new systems of justice and equality of being blown it shattered lives and baffled people of the land are rising up as never before. People who sat in darkness have seen a great light. We in the West must support these revolutions. It is a

sad fact. That because of conflict complacency a mob of fear of communism and a proneness to adjust to injustice. The Western nations that initiated so much of the revolutionary spirit are the modern world have now become much anti revolutionaries. This has driven men into a field that only Marxism has a revolutionary spirit that communism is a judgement against our failure to make democracy real and follow through on the revolutions that we initiated. I won't hold to day lives and I would ability to recapture the revolutionary spirit and go out into a sometimes hostile collaring eternal hostility to poverty racism and militarism. This powerful commitment we show both the challenge the

status quo and unjust Mowbray's and speed the day when average valleys shall be exalted in ever mounting and heel shall be made low and the crooked shall be made straight and the rough places plain genuine revolution of values means in the final analysis that I must become ecumenical rather than sectional. Every nation must now develop an overriding loyalty to mankind as a whole and ought it to preserve the best in the individual societies. This call for a well world wide fellowship that lifts neighborly concern beyond ones try race class and nation is in reality a cause of an all embracing. And bracing and unconditional love for all mankind. This oft. Misunderstood this is often mis

interpreted concepts so read it lead dismissed by the niche is of the world as a weak and cowardly force as now become an absolute necessity for the survival of man. When I speak of love I'm not speaking of some sentimental and weak response. I'm not speaking of that force which is just emotional Bosh. I'm speaking of that force which all of the great religions have seen as the supreme unifying principle of life that somehow the key that unlocks the door which leads to ultimate reality is Hindu Muslim Christian Jewish Buddhist belief about ultimate the ultimate reality is beautiful is summed up in the first epistle of St.. Let us love one another. For love is God. And everyone that love it is born of God in north of God. He

that loveth not know is not God God is love. If we love one another God dwelleth in us and His love is perfected in us. Let us hope that this spirit will become daughter of the day. We can no longer afford to worship the god of hate. Before the altar of retaliation the oceans of history made turbulent by the ever rising tides of hate. History is credited with the records in nations and individuals that pursued this self-defeating path of hate as as a force that makes for the saving choice of life and good against a damning choice of death an evil that for the first hope an inventory must be the hope that love is gone to have the last word on what we faced with the fact my friend that.

He is today. We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now and this unfolding conundrum of life and history. That is such a thing as being too late. Procrastination is still the thief of time. Life often leaves us standing back neck in dejected with a lost opportunity caught in the affair as a man does not remain flooded ere we may crowd desperate for time to pause in her passage. But time is adamant to have Ripley and rushes all over the bleached bones and Jumbo residues of numerous civilizations ridden the pathetic words too late. That is an invisible book of light that faithfully records a vigil and neglect. Mark I yam is

right the moving finger writes and have been written moves on. We still have a choice today. Non-violent co-existence of Baal and co on Ile ation. We must move past indecision to action. We must find new ways to speak for peace in Vietnam and justice throughout the developing world that borders on. If we do not act. We shell surely be dragged down the long dock and shameful Carra doors of time. Reserved for those who possess power without compassion might without more reality and strength without sight. Now let us begin now let us rededicate ourselves to the long and bitter but beautiful struggle. For a new way. This is the calling of the Son of God. And I brothers wait eagerly if I

respond shall we say the odds are too great Shall we tell them the struggle is too hot. Well a message would be that the forces of American life militate against our men and we send our deepest regrets. Will that be another message of longing of hope of solidarity with their yearnings of commitment to that cause whatever the cause. The choice is ours. Though we might prefer it otherwise we must choose. And this crucial moment of human history that noble bought of yesterday James Russell lower level of pointless stated ones to every man and nation comes the moment to decide. In the strife for truth and falsehood. Father good or evil saw some great cause God's new

messiah our friend eats a blight and at Shaws goes by for ever. Twixt that darkness and that light. Though the cause of the evil prosper. Yet this truth alone is strong. B the scaffold and upon the throne. Yet that scaffold sways the future and behind the demo known standeth God within the shadows keeping watch above his own. And if we were alone to make the right choice. We will be able to transform. This pending cosmic Elegy into a creative peace. We will make the right choice. We will be able to transform the jangling discords evolve into a beautiful Sinfonia Brotherhood. If we will but make the right choice we will be

able to speed up the day all over America and all over the world. When Justice will roll down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream you heard an address on Beyond Vietnam by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Dr. King spoke at the Riverside Church in New York City. Under the auspices of the clergy and laymen concerned about Vietnam. This special program was presented by national educational radio in cooperation with station WRVO our New York City. This is the national educational radio network.