How Did Martin Luther King Beyond Vietnam A Time To Break Silence

In Dr. Martin Luther King’s speech, “Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence”, King asserts that the war in Vietnam is a “symptom” (7) of a much larger disease that affects the “American spirit” (7). The disease King mentions is causing destruction where ever it is found, and in the case of the Vietnam war, it has led to their oppression and the death of people. In the section, Strange Liberators, King states, “They move sadly and apathetically as we heard them off the land of their fathers into concentration camps where minimal social needs are rarely met. They know they must move or be destroyed by our bombs” (8). King believed that the disease was leading the United States to take drastic actions against the Vietnamese people. The U.S.

The Vietnam War that commenced on November 1, 1955, and ended on April 30, 1975, took the soldiers through a devastating experience. Many lost their lives while others maimed as the war unfolded into its full magnitude. The book Dear America: Letters Home from Vietnam by Bernard Edelman presents a series of letters written by the soldiers to their loved ones and families narrating the ordeals and experiences in the Warfield. In the book, Edelman presents the narrations of over 200 letters reflecting the soldiers’ experiences on the battlefield. While the letters were written many decades ago, they hold great significance as they can mirror the periods and the contexts within which they were sent. This paper takes into account five letters from different timelines and analyzes them against the events that occurred in those periods vis a vis their significance. The conclusion will also have a personal opinion and observation regarding the book and its impacts.

Subsequently, King exercises the strategy of pathos, the emotion appeal. In his statement, "Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksand of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. Now is the time to make justice a reality for all God\'s children". The great use of imagery with the contrast of light vs. dark here definitely draws audience’s attention. Moreover, by making references to the government as a "Bank of Justice" that gave African Americans a "bad check," King describes the situation of the African American people. He proclaims that the "Bank" is not bankrupt and that it was time to "cash the check". These metaphors are easy to understand and are something that the audience can relate to.

Thesis: King brilliantly applies rhetorical strategies such as pathos, logos and ethos that are crucial in successfully influencing detractors of his philosophical views on civil disobedience.

The Vietnam War was not only fought on the battle field, but also in the cities and on the college campuses of The United States of America. The author, David Maraniss describes through the novel, in finicky detail, both the ruthless ambush of the Black Lion battalion near Lai Khe, Vietnam, in this instance sixty-one soldiers were massacred, and an antiwar protest that takes place at the University of Wisconsin. Rallying against the drafting of students on campus by company that manufactured napalm.

Wars are a difficult place to be. “THE VIETNAM WAR transformed a generation” (Roberts 1). With all that happened during the war such as exposure to

Like instruments in an orchestra being brought in one by one to a melody that fills the ears of its listeners and drives out any other thoughts, King then targets the white moderate population, the white voters. He tries to place this audience into the shoes of the black people by giving vivid descriptions of the trials they have been going through and invoke empathy in their hearts. He says: "When you have seen vicious mobs lynch your mothers and fathers at will and drown your brothers and sisters at whim . . ." This statement brings up an issue every culture has had to deal with, death. Death in the American culture is one that is associated with loss and grief. King deftly imposes this loss on the shoulders of his white audience making it clear to them the pain the black people have been dealt.

King understands that to communicate such a controversial position effectively; logic alone will not be sufficient. To reach even deeper into the psyche of his reader King also attempts to appeal to the reader's emotional side. By presenting vivid details to describe the plight of himself and other Blacks, King offers the opportunity for us to vicariously experience the heartbreaking emotions in the daily lives of African Americans under the laws of segregation. These poignant

King continues on by affecting the reader, on an emotional level, by going through and explaining some of the unending amount of torturous events that the black community had to endure daily. In an essay by an anonymous writer it says, “He uses a dialog that reaches into the pit of your soul and places you on an emotional rollercoaster.” When he says, “when you have seen vicious mobs lynch your mothers and fathers at will and drown your sisters and brothers at whim; when you have seen hate-filled policemen curse,

Martin Luther King, Jr. is one of the most influential people of this century. People remember King for his humanity, leadership and his love of his fellow man regardless of their skin color. Through reading King’s writings and speeches, that changed the world, one can learn that his values of integrity, love, truth, fairness, caring, non-violence, and peace were what motivated him to greatness. One of his less known speeches is “A Time to Break the Silence”, this speech was different than most of King’s speeches; the theme of this speech is not civil rights movement, but Vietnam. King addresses the war in Vietnam and he gives reasons why it should not continue.

In Dr. Martin Luther King’s speech “Beyond Vietnam—A Time to Break Silence” (1967), Dr. King asserts that the war in Vietnam is totally immoral and has far reaching negative implications not only for Vietnam, but for The United States and the rest of the World as well. Dr. King’s purpose is to make the church leaders he is speaking to aware that the time has come for them to speak out loudly in opposition of the war in Vietnam. He offers many practical reasons for the opposition, as well as spiritual and moral reasons. He then outlines the history of the war in Vietnam, showing that he is not simply preaching about religious ideals. He also makes an

King's response to the unjustness of America's participation in the Vietnam is first capitalized by the claim that the importance of winning and paying for the war, was far more important to the Government during this time than any other discriminations, protests, or acts of unjustness that should have been paid a close eye to. King begins by proclaiming that through all of the work put into the efforts of equality, have disintegrated through the precedence of the the War. Through the usage of metaphors and extreme diction, King was able to set the tone of outrage and disappointment he sees within the current events. By saying that the Vietnam War was a "demonic destructive suction tube" in terms of how much attention and money was put into it, King effectively encourages the audience to take into consideration the mangled society and the drainage of the funds.

One of Dr. King's most influential devices is his pristine use of repetition in order to drill his points across and reel the audience in. He goes on by describing the poor conditions faced by African Americans due to segregation that is ultimately at the fault of the government. Also showing how their African brothers are being taken away to fight for a country that does not see them as equals. His use of repetition is seen in statements such as: “...their sons and their brothers and their husbands to fight and to die…” and, “For the sake of those boys, for the sake of this government, for the sake of the hundreds of thousands trembling under our violence….” Dr. King intends to stress the idea of this injustice in order to rally the people against the lack of civil rights by humanizing the countless African Americans who had died fighting for a nation that will not fight for them.

Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community? Martin Luther King Jr. In 1967, King separated himself from the world and hid from the Civil Rights Movement. King writes out his thoughts, plans, and dreams for America’s future. As part of this plan he mentions what would come with this dream and that’s better jobs, houses, higher incomes, and better education. Most importantly King speaks out against the war. Kings speech titled “Beyond Vietnam”. Which explains the relationship of the Civil Rights and peace movement. King asked that all bombing stop in North and South Vietnam be an agreement and remove all troops and give the people of slavery a decision on reaching agreements. King believed that the Vietnam War took money and attention from programs that helped the poor. Furthermore, King said “the war was doing far more devastating the hopes of the poor at home 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 (Martin Luther King, Jr speaks out against the war, ‘1967)

Widely known for his work in the Civil Rights Movement, Martin Luther King Jr eventually also gained momentum in the anti-war movement against the war in Vietnam. Through his use of imagery, diction, and parallel structure, Martin Luther King Jr associates the war in Vietnam with injustice in his famous speech, "Beyond Vietnam - A Time to Break Silence." Martin Luther King Jr. applies imagery throughout his speech in order to illustrate the horrors of the war to arouse anger at its atrocities and injustice. For instance, he does when he depicts the, "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. " The image of death, as powerful as it is, becomes amplified when Martin Luther King associates the injustices of segregation with the Vietnam war.