Dr. Martin Luther King's Beyond Vietnam

David W. Powell wrote a passage titled Vietnam: What I Remember. This passage is an expert from his memoir, My Tour in Hell. That is exactly what he describes in this passage. He shares brief statements of many of the things that happened to him in his two tours in the Vietnam war. They are all very horrific, brutal, sad, scary, violent to say the least. He opens up by sharing these memories he has had, and shares of his experience after the war. How he can not get or keep a job because of his Post Traumatic Stress disorder. He has divorced two wives and can not stay in a stable relationship. Powell gives us the undesirable inside scoop of what it was like fighting as a soldier in the Vietnam war and what it is like to be a Vet from the Vietnam war. Both not fun experiences at all.

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

Going off of what Kennedy said, the US is following a path to a violent revolution. MLK believes that there is still a choice to be made on whether to keep going with the violence in Vietnam, or to exist peacefully. He emphasizes that the US is only acting on interest and not caring about the consequences left behind.

Secretary of State John Kerry once said “I saw courage both in the Vietnam War and in the struggle to stop it. I learned that patriotism includes protest, not just military service.” The Vietnam War was a conflict that lasted from 1956-1975 which the United States participated in along with the South Vietnamese who fought against the Communist North Vietnamese. Many Americans strongly disapproved of the war which caused many protests and riots. The war lasted 25 years killing many people and eventually the North Vietnamese won. The Vietnam War was important to Americans back home because it tested the citizen’s right to free speech, effected future foreign policy, and created many issues for returning veterans.

King saw the was able to see the Vietnam War for what it really was, an oppressive form of imperialism. he American military was destroying Vietnam land, and disenfranchising its people. Over 2 million acres of forest was destroyed. Agent Orange was the major cause of this, it left serious ecological and human impact on Vietnamese people's lives. Today there are still many children in Vietnam growing up with various diseases and disabilities affected by the chemicals. King came to view U.S. intervention in Southeast Asia as little more than imperialism. Additionally, he believed that the Vietnam War diverted money and attention from domestic programs created to aid the black poor. King said, “the war was doing far more than devastating the

Howard Zinn says it best when he writes that “from 1964 to 1972, the wealthiest and most powerful nation in the history of the world made a maximum military effort, with everything short of atomic bombs, to defeat a nationalist revolutionary movement in a tiny peasant country – and failed” (Zinn, 460). Zinn does not mince words when expressing his thoughts about the Vietnam War, because as Zinn says, Vietnam was basically a modern portrayal of David vs. Goliath. One could even go as far as to say that Vietnam was in essence a case of mass genocide in Vietnam. Thousands and thousands of Vietnamese and America soldiers were killed along with thousands upon thousands of innocent, Vietnamese citizens. War is an infectious disease and the Vietnam War is a perfect example of how deadly of a disease war can be. Everybody involved in the Vietnam War was affected, whether it was Vietnamese citizens, Vietnamese soldiers, American soldiers, or even American citizens back home. The disease that was the Vietnam War infected the hearts and minds of two countries half way across the world from each other.

The Hour of Reckoning In the chapter “The Hour of Reckoning” from Let the Trumpet Sound: The Life of Martin Luther King, Jr., author Stephen B. Oates goes into great detail on King’s view of the Vietnam War that occurred in 1967, which led into his probable presidency. On the evening of April 04, 1967, Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered a speech to a crowd of 3,000 at Riverside Church in New York that spoke against the war in Vietnam. He called the war immoral and felt as if he couldn’t continue to remain silent because as a believer of non-violence, he couldn’t undertake equal rights and peace amongst humanity, when the government thought violence was the answer in Vietnam. Due to King being anti-war, his relationship with the president at the time, Lyndon Johnson had ended.

The era of the Vietnam War was not only a time of war abroad but also in our own country, a war against poverty and inequality. People of color were fighting for their rights to be seen as equals in the labor force, education, and in the military. One of the famous leaders of the civil rights movement was Martin Luther King Jr. who was backed by President Lyndon B, Johnson. President LBJ was interested in creating welfare programs that would benefit those in poverty and give them hope, he was all about creating a “level playing field” to create opportunities that would benefit society as a whole.

“If America’s soul becomes totally poisoned, part of the autopsy must read ‘Vietnam’.” Today I invoke the late Martin Luther King Jr’s words with full knowledge of the gravity they carry. My fellow Americans, the Vietnam war is undeniably the greatest moral catastrophe to have ever plagued our beloved nation; it has done nothing but divide us domestically and humiliate us internationally. As a result, for the sake of America’s conscience and dignity, the National Mobilisation Committee implores the Democratic Party to immediately de-escalate or even withdraw America’s military presence in South Vietnam. Yet I understand that the onus is upon me to prove that the National Mobilisation Committee’s path of peace is superior to President Johnson’s path of war. Consequently, I will rebut President Johnson’s attempts to defend the war. Furthermore, it has come to my attention that my pacifism has shaken my fellow protestors’ faith in my ability to bring about positive change. As a result, I will also use this speech to argue in favour of nonviolent protest, as it is the only way for those in power to hear our voices.

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 1967, 64 percent of all eligible African-Americans were drafted versus only 31 percent of eligible whites (Black 2009). This fact testifies to only a small portion of why nearly all African-Americans found themselves protesting against the Vietnam War. The lack of civil rights in the U.S deterred many blacks from supporting Vietnam, a conflict aimed at liberating the rights of another people. African Americans were frustrated with a country who fought for other citizens and saw no purpose in fighting for a peoples’ freedom but their own. Although African-Americans were specifically discriminated against both in Vietnam and America, they were not alone in their anti-war position. The majority of the American public opposed the Vietnam War. As the war dragged on, people found no reason to fight in Vietnam and believed that the United States should prioritize their own citizens first. Many public figures, such as Martin Luther King, Jr., and Muhammad Ali, held similar claims. Their opinions aligned with the public’s concern and suggested that the U.S withdraw troops and focus resources on the civil rights issues at home. These public figures fought for a specific minority, but, in light of the entire American population, the majority of people opposed the war.

Contending versions of the Vietnam War and the antiwar movement began to develop even before the war ended. The hawks' version, then and now, holds that the war was winnable, but the press, micromanaging civilian game theorists in the Pentagon, and antiwar hippies lost it. . . . The doves' version, contrarily, remains that the war was unwise and unwinnable no matter what strategy was employed or how much firepower was used. . . Both of these versions of the war and the antiwar movement as they have come down to us are better termed myths than versions of history because they function less as explanations of reality than as new justifications of old positions and the emotional investments that attended them (Garfinkle, 7).

During the Vietnam War, the official ideology of North Vietnam was Marxism-Leninism, which the government tried to force onto their citizens. The majority of the citizens were indoctrinated with their ideology, however, a small number of citizens were not. The most championed campaign was the “‘Three Don’ts,’ which forbade sex, love, or marriage among the young people” (131). This political indoctrination on the citizens of North Vietnam was of great importance to Kien and Phuong’s relationship in Bao Ninh’s The Sorrow of War. This was shown through both Kien and Phuong’s rebellion of the ideology, Kien beginning to agree with the ideology, and Phuong giving into the ideology controlling her.

The Vietnam War was one of the most comprehensive and horrible wars after the Second World War. Hundreds of thousands US soldiers were sent to help fight the communists in Vietnam. The US was driven by Cold War concerns about the spread of communism, particularly by the “domino theory” - the idea that if one Asian nation fell to the leftist ideology, others would quickly follow. On 1st of June, 1956 John F. Kennedy, at that time a young senator, gave a speech on America’s political interest in Vietnam. In that speech John F. Kennedy tried to persuade the American people to accept and support America’s intervention in Vietnam.

The American “war” in Vietnam was never only, or even primarily, about Vietnam. The Cold War, with the United States and its allies competing with the Soviets and the Chinese, shaped much of the American strategy in Vietnam. A pivotal period of U.S. involvement in Vietnam, punctuated by three important events. The Overthrow and Assassination of South Vietnam’s president Ngo Dinh Diem; President Kennedy’s decision on October 2nd to begin the withdrawal of