By Tom Wagner
The following was a presentation given the 5th of
March 2017 at the Harbor Unitarian Universalist Congregation, Muskegon, MI.
Inspiration often comes to us cloaked in mystery. Sometimes
it comes to us as something that was always there; wisdom passed on from generation
to generation or long standing personal commitments, but nearly imperceptible
until a fresh breeze of new circumstance in our individual or collective life
calls our attention to it.
Other times
it hits us like a thunder bolt, seemingly from nowhere, but with an
irresistible energy that stops us in our tracks, turns us around and forcefully
propels us into the future. Still other times we wrestle long and hard within
ourselves or even with our closest allies. When resolution is reached,
exhaustion may leave us not quite sure if we eventually discovered some deeply
hidden strength to prevail, or if we finally surrendered to the will of some
greater power.
All three of these perspectives guided the Rev. Dr. Martin
Luther King, Jr.'s decision to speak out against the Vietnam War at Riverside
Church 50 years ago. It was likely the most controversial speech of his career,
yet Congressman John Lewis has suggested that it was his most important,
perhaps greater than the "I Have a Dream" speech. My plan is to
discuss both the context and content of his speech. While the contextual
material will focus primarily on the period from January to April 1967, it will
include references to the longer history of U.S. involvement in Vietnam and the
Civil Rights Movement. The text of King's address is rather long, so I will
summarize much of it and quote important passages occasionally. Sources
sometimes list the speech under the title, "A Time to Break the
Silence". Others use "Beyond Vietnam". The first title comes
from a text given to the press shortly before King delivered it. The second
title is based on a transcription. King spoke at New York's Riverside Church
April 4th, 1967, exactly one year before his assassination in Memphis.
Context
Oddly, by one account, the road to the speech began with a
colleague washing a load of diapers in early January 1967. James Bevel had come
to a moment of clarity during this mundane task. Though the idea didn't come
completely unexpected, the ecstatic energy provided was lightning like. Bevel
had to speak with Dr. King as soon as possible.
By 1967 James Bevel had a long history in the Civil Rights
Movement. He, along with his first wife Diane Nash and others, was a founding
member of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) in 1960. He was
a veteran of lunch counter sit-ins, freedom rides and voter registration drives
in the Deep South. After meeting with King in 1962 he was hired by the Southern
Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) as Director of Direct Action and Director
of Nonviolent Education. He played a central role during the spring 1963
Birmingham, Alabama Campaign by proposing and taking primary responsibility for
training local youth for what became known as the "Children's
Crusade". A combination of televised images of police dog and fire hose
attacks, plus the threat of organizing an even larger youth march from
Birmingham to Washington, D.C. convinced the Kennedy Administration to begin
drafting civil rights legislation. As part of the Alabama Voting Rights
project, Bevel proposed and organized the 1965 March from Selma to Montgomery,
which after the false starts on Bloody Sunday and Turn Around Tuesday, became
one of the key motivations for passing the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Most
recently in 1966 he had led SCLC's fair housing program in Chicago
In that same period American military involvement
particularly in Vietnam, but also throughout South East Asia, was escalating on
a massive scale. By December 31, 1966, 385,300 troops had been deployed to
Vietnam. At the end of 1967 that number rose to 485,600. Since the mid-1950s,
following a failed nine year French mission to re-colonize the region, the
United States had sent a gradually increasing number of military advisors to
support the South Vietnamese government against forces of the Communist North
and domestic insurgents. Near the end of Eisenhower's Administration those
advisors numbered about 900. The Kennedy Administration, stinging from the
failed Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba and construction of the Berlin Wall, began
to focus attention on South East Asia after a negotiated settlement in Laos
between the pro-western government and the Pathet Lao. At the time of JFK's
assassination in November 1963 the administration had raised U.S. troop level
in Vietnam to 16,000. Conditions changed drastically under Lyndon Johnson
following two alleged attacks by North Vietnam on American spy ships on August
2 and 4, 1964 in the Gulf of Tonkin (about a month after the signing of the
1964 Civil Rights Act). Congress quickly passed the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution on
August 7th. Though it wasn't a formal declaration of war, LBJ treated it as
permission to pursue a full military response. Troop levels were raised to
23,300 by the end of the year and reached 184,300 by the end of 1965.By the
time our story was unfolding in January 1967; U.S. forces were in the midst of
a three year bombing campaign called Rolling Thunder. Also ground troops were
engaged in Operation Cedar Falls which destroyed four villages and flattened 40
square miles of countryside in order to force 10,000 residents into relocation
camps. American casualties hit a record 1,194, which included a near record 240
deaths.
Prior to James Bevel's domestic chore revelation, A. J.
Muste of the Fellowship of Reconciliation (FOR) had asked him to lead a rally
against the war planned for that spring. Up until that moment Bevel had begged
off the invitation. However, at that moment he decided to accept Muste's
request, but also decided to convince King to join the anti-war movement.
Having found emergency child care for his two children (his wife was on a peace
mission to North Vietnam with other peace activists), he told Muste's
colleagues he would accept the mobilization leadership, found travel funds and headed for Atlanta to talk
with King face to face.
However, Dr. King was not in Atlanta. He was under deadline
to draft a book within two months. (It would be his final book, Where Do We Go
from Here: Chaos or Community.) So he
had gone into seclusion in Jamaica to write. Bevel was able to talk Andrew
Young into air fare and directions to King's retreat. Once there he recounted
his washing machine epiphany and asked the civil rights leader: "Why are
you teaching nonviolence to Negroes in Mississippi but not to Lyndon Johnson in
Vietnam?" King responded defensively that his mandate as leader of SCLC
was to pursue civil rights issues, not foreign policy. Yet after he sent Bevel
back to the States, the issue began to gnaw on him. As had happened often in
his relationship with Bevel, at first King would resist his proposal, but
eventually he would come around.
Actually King had publicly questioned the Vietnam War
starting with a speech at Howard University on March 2nd, 1965, nearly two
years earlier, but the media hadn't paid attention. He also joined a politically
moderate group called Clergy and Laymen Concerned about Vietnam which organized
seven months following the Howard speech. King left Jamaica for Miami in early
February for the final stages of writing. His return also began nearly two
months of wrestling within SCLC and among King's numerous friends and advisers
over the question of whether he should participate in Bevel's anti-war
mobilization, now scheduled for April 15th in New York City. Some worried that the broad coalition of
organizations participating in the march, including some communist groups would
damage SCLC's reputation and in turn create financial difficulty. Bayard Rustin
who had played a key role in teaching Gandhian nonviolence to leaders of the
Civil Rights Movement, thought participation would cut off future cooperation
with the Johnson Administration. Curiously it was King who began distancing
himself from LBJ. He had secured a March 13th meeting with the president, but
canceled it.
When it became clear that Dr. King planned to speak,
regardless of the results, Andrew Young arranged for him to speak at Union
Theological Seminary prior to the mobilization to soften the response. In a
third party hand off of the assignment Richard Fernandez, executive secretary
of Clergy and Laymen Concerned, took charge. He proposed a three point plan to
counteract negative effects from the April 15th event. One, the preview lecture
would be moved to Riverside Church on April 4th. Two, a professional public
relations person would be brought on board. And three, the Rev. Dr. would need
to provide a text hopefully five days in advance for the press.
Fernandez submitted his list on March 21st. Starting March
24th, King had scheduled to be in Chicago, IL; and later Louisville, KY. As he
left Atlanta, he gave a four point outline to Andrew Young. Young in turn
assigned actual drafting of the speech to a number of volunteers. Much of the
final text was drawn from material provided by Vincent Harding, a history
professor at Spelman College. Harding was an African-American who had grown up
in the Seventh Day Adventist tradition. After serving in the military, he
attended graduate school in Chicago. There in the late 1950s he became active
in Woodlawn Mennonite Church, a rare integrated congregation in the denomination.
He and his wife Rosemarie later led Mennonite Central Committee work on civil
rights in Atlanta from 1961-1965, living within a few blocks of Martin &
Coretta King.
The Speech
On the evening of April 4th, King faced a crowd of over
3,000 people at Riverside Church. He began by telling the crowd that conscience
compelled him to speak, and quoted a recent statement from Clergy and Laymen
Concerned about Vietnam; "A time comes when silence is betrayal."
King admitted that telling the truth is difficult, especially if that truth
sets one at odds with one's government. Yet he found encouragement in the
significant number of religious leaders willing to, for perhaps the first time,
choose conscience over conformity. Many people had questioned the wisdom of
expressing dissent against the war. "'Why are you speaking about 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 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."
At this point he made clear that his message that evening
was aimed at his fellow Americans, not the other actors in the war. King then
listed several reasons why he must address the conflict in Vietnam. The most
direct connection between civil rights and the war was that increasingly
military spending was diverting talent and treasure from poverty programs at
home. Furthermore it was men from poor homes who fight and die. There was an
irony of black and white soldiers fighting and dying next to each other over
seas, while they can't live in the same block in Chicago. Another reason
addressed Bevel's initial question. It was a matter of consistency. How could
he stay relatively silent about the Johnson Administration's use of lethal
force abroad and continue preaching nonviolence at home. In the broader context
human rights and nonviolence are connected. (How easily we roll that connection
off the tongue 50 years later in the phrase "peace & justice".)
King recalled a motto SCLC used ten years earlier: "To Save the Soul of
America". Speaking out came from concern for the health and well being of
the republic. Indeed, "If America's soul becomes totally poisoned, part of
the autopsy must read 'Vietnam'". As a Nobel laureate and a minister of
the gospel, peace was his business.
"Finally, as I try to explain for you and for myself
the road that leads from Montgomery to this place, I would have offered all
that was most valid if I simply said that I must be true to my conviction that
I share with all men the calling to be a son of the living God. Beyond the
calling of race or nation or creed is this vocation of sonship and brotherhood.
Because I believe that the Father is deeply concerned, especially for His
suffering and helpless and outcast children, I come tonight to speak for them.
This I believe to be the privilege and the burden of all of us who deem
ourselves bound by allegiances and loyalties which are broader and deeper than
nationalism and which go beyond our nation's self-defined goals and positions.
We are called to speak for the weak, for the voiceless, for the victims of our
nation, for those it calls 'enemy,' for no document from human hands can make
these humans any less our brothers."
Much of the text recounted the history of U.S. involvement
in Vietnam, as he imagined a Vietnamese peasant might see it. We had supported
French efforts to re-colonize South East Asia for the first nine years
following World War II. We interfered with the 1954 Geneva Talks so as to
prevent reunification. We backed repressive regimes in Saigon. Then we put
boots on the ground and bombers in the air. We displaced people, killed their
crops and poisoned their land and water. No wonder they might consider the
Americans at best "strange liberators". King quoted an unnamed
Buddhist leader, "It is curious that the Americans, who calculate so
carefully on the possibilities of military victory, do not realize that in the
process they are incurring deep psychological and political defeat. The image
of America will never again be the image of revolution, freedom, and democracy,
but the image of violence and militarism."
The civil rights leader moved on to propose five steps
toward ending the war. Number one was to end the bombing of both North and
South Vietnam. Second, declare a unilateral cease-fire to encourage
negotiation. Three, prevent further spread of the conflict by ending the
build-up in Thailand and interference in Laos. Fourth, accept that the National
Liberation Front (Viet Cong) has significant support in the South a must be
included in future talks. And fifth, set a date for the withdrawal of all
foreign troops. In the midst of applause King added granting asylum to
Vietnamese who felt threatened by a new government, pay reparations and provide
badly needed medical aid to the list. He encouraged faith communities to
continue pressuring the administration to end its role in the hostilities
through the creative use of protest. This included challenging young men to
consider registering as conscientious objectors. (Note, this was not a
suggestion to burn draft cards or resist the draft, but remained fully within
the bounds of legal choices worked out with Selective Service prior to WW II.)
However, then the Rev. Dr. made what was likely the most
important point: "The war in Vietnam is but a symptom of a far deeper
malady within the American spirit...". Too often then, and in the
intervening years, there has been a pattern of using military aid or presence,
particularly in Third World countries, to protect American economic interests.
"It is with such activity 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 to the right side
of the world revolution, we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of
values. We must rapidly begin the 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, materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered."
......
"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.
.....
"We still have a choice today: nonviolent coexistence
or violent co-annihilation. We must move past indecision to action. We must
find new ways to speak for peace in Vietnam and justice throughout the
developing world, a world that borders on our doors. If we do not act, we shall
surely be dragged down the long, dark, and shameful corridors of time reserved
for those who possess power without compassion, might without morality, and
strength without sight."
....
"Now let us rededicate ourselves to the long and
bitter, but beautiful, struggle for a new world."
Amen
BIBLIOGRAPHY
http://www.americanwarlibrary.com/vietnam/vwatl.htm
https://ml.bethelks.edu/issue/vol-69/article/a-prophet-pushed-out-vincent-harding-and-the-menno/
Taylor Branch, At Canaan's Edge: America in the King Years
1965-1968 (NY: Simon & Schuster, 2006)
http://kingencyclopedia.stanford.edu/encyclopedia/documentsentry/doc_beyond_vietnam/
David L. Lewis, King: A Biography, 2nd ed. (Chicago:
University of Illinois Press, 1978)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnam_War
James Melvin Washington, ed. A Testament of Hope: The
Essential Writings of Martin Luther King, Jr. (San
Francisco:
Harper & Row, 1986)
Tom Wagner is a former pastor in the Church of the Brethren. He studied at Manchester College and Bethany Theological Seminary. He has long served on the Muskegon County [Michigan] Cooperating Churches Board of Directors, a local ecumenical agency, and writes a regular column for their bi-monthly newsletter.
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