The name Martin Luther King Jr. has many connotations. From remembering basic human rights to the struggle against segregation, King is a historical figure who will remain in our national consciousness for generations to come.
The battles that King fought in the 1960s were no different from those facing U.S. citizens today. In fact, a lesser-known fact about King’s activism is that the famous civil rights activist also took a stand against war.
At a series of speeches in 1965, King repeatedly condemned the Vietnam War, commenting that a nonviolent course of action involving the United Nations ought to commence rather than the continued presence of U.S. troops in Vietnam. King further argued that forcing young black men to fight for the civil rights of people across the globe was hypocritical, considering the fact that those U.S. minority youth weren’t guaranteed basic human rights in their own country.
In his 1967 speech “Beyond Vietnam,” King eloquently yet firmly explained his stance on war: “A time comes when silence is betrayal. That time has come for us in relation to Vietnam. … I knew that I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed in the ghettos without having first spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today – my own government. For the sake of those boys, for the sake of this government, for the sake of hundreds of thousands trembling under our violence, I cannot be silent.”
Like so many citizens today, Martin Luther King lived in a world where the lines between liberation and warfare were often undefined. The military action in Vietnam was introduced as a process of peace and order, not unlike the recent militarism of Iraq in order to increase democracy and end terrorism. King, however, never compromised his position as a man devoted to peace. King believed, as many did, that foreign investment and other special interests of the United States were the main reasons that the conflict in Vietnam became a war.
With the myriad similarities between the Vietnam War and the attack on Iraq, there is little doubt that were the great civil rights leader alive today, he would stand in protest of the pre-emptive U.S. military action taken against Iraq. U.S. soldiers who have grown up in poverty are deployed to protect Iraq, while their families back home struggle thanks to reductions in social services and increased military spending. Has our nation so readily forgotten King’s most important value of unconditional love for all?
At the end of his “Beyond Vietnam” speech, King announced, “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 … and justice throughout the developing world – a world that borders on our doors.” In the years of American diplomacy and military action to come, our country ought to remember the words of Martin Luther King.