(木) Beyond Vietnam -- A Time to Break Silence

Who was Martin Luther King Jr. and what was his speaking style?

Please see this page.

Here is my summary of the page's contents: Martin Luther King Jr. was born in 1929 in Atlanta, Georgia. After he graduated from Morehouse College, he went to Crozer Theological Seminary in Pennsylvania State (see picture below).

In 1951, he began doctoral studies in Systematic Theology at Boston University and received his Doctor of Philosophy in 1955. He visited India because he was invited by the prime minister of India in 1957. At that time, he received the influence of Mahatma Gandhi by studying Gandhi's doctrine of "non violence and resistance doctrine."

As an African-American, he was discriminated against many times. For example, when he was a boy, he was playing with the two white boys who lived next door when their mother said, "I will never allow my children to play with Martin." And, when he was a high school student, he got on the bus but was forced to hand over his seat to a white person. King gave a speech on August 28, 1963 that is known as the "I Have a Dream" speech in which he called on the government to end segregation. He also gave a speech in 1967, "Beyond Vietnam - A Time To Break Silence," in which he insisted that the government of America should use money not for the war but for the poor.

Second, I will give examples of his speaking style.

This is the audio and text to "Beyond Vietnam - A time To Break Silence" from 1967.

Please watch and listen to "I Have a Dream" from 1963.

The style of his speech is very individual. He spoke in loud voice, slowly. He made passionate speeches and seemed a little angry. In the 1963 speech, he used the expression, "I have a dream," many times. He also used the expression, "Now is the time," and "Let freedom ring" many times, and this created a unique rhythm. He spoke in very strong rhythm and his English was easy to understand. As King begin to end his speech, his voice became louder, he started repeating certain phrases, and the people in the crowd would get louder and louder, too. This "call-and-response" style comes from the Baptist Church of which King was a member.

This was the first time that I had become aware of his speaking style. I think that many people understood what he said because he made passionate speeches. I think the poor were saved by his movement such as making speeches.

Ran Nagasaki

A Fictional Interview

Q: Excuse me, Mr. King.
A: Yes?
Q: I'm Hiroe Sainohira, from NHK in Japan. I just saw your speech. May I ask you a few questions?
Q: O.K.

Q：What have you been doing for these last two years?
　（ここ２年にわたって、あなたは何をしましたか？）
A：I broke the act of betrayal of the people who remain silent. I spoke my desire. I requested an end to the destruction of Vietnam.
（私は差別などを見て見ぬ振りをして黙っている人たちの裏切り行為を破りました。そして、私の熱い思いを話ました。私は、ベトナムの破壊から根本的な逸脱を求めました。）

Q：What did people say to you about your speaking out？
　（それに対して人々はあなたに何といいましたか？）
A：People are “Why are you speaking out against the war?　“Why did you join the anti-war voices?” “Peace and human rights don't go together.”
（私の方針についてたくさんの人々が異議を唱えてきました。人々は‘なぜあなたは戦争について話しているのか？”‘なぜあなたは異議の声に加わるのか？”‘平和と人権は混合しない”などいいました。）

Q：Why did you say that a couple of years ago there was hope for the poor people of America?
（貧困な人々にとって輝いているときがあったそうですが、それはどのように見えましたか？）
A：It seemed that there was a real promise of hope for the poor－both black and white－through the government's poverty program. In it, there were experiments, hopes, new beginnings.
（貧困プログラムを通して黒人も白人も、貧困な人々にとって希望の真の約束があったように見えました。それには試み、希望新しい始まりがありました。）

Q:What can you do if the United States government will not use the money or energy necessary for poor people as long as it continues the war in Vietnam?
(ベトナムが破壊的な吸引管のような人間や技術やお金を探し続けさえすれば、アメリカは貧困な人々の必要な資金や復興エネルギーを投資しないだろうといいましたが、あなたはどうしましたか？)
A:I came to see war as an enemy to Americans and so I criticize war.
(私は戦争をますます敵として見るようになり、戦争を非難するようになりました。)

Q：What is a political form of the present United States?
（現在のアメリカの政治形態は何ですか？）
A：Today, the United States has a racial superiority complex
and it is militaristic.
（現在のアメリカの政治形態は、人種的優越感および軍国主義です。）

Q：What is the danger to a country like the United States that spends a lot of money on war every year?
（年々お金を使いすぎている国家はどうなってきていますか？）
A:A nation that continues year and year to spend more money on military defense than on programs to help its own people is a nation whose soul is dying.
(多くのお金を使いすぎている国家は精神の死に近づいています。)

Q: Thank you for your time, Mr. King.
A: Thank you.
.....................................................
It is easy for me to understand King's speech. Through the speech, I lear a lot of things about King's idea of a revolution of values and its background.

Hiroe Sainohira

Speech Background

King gave his speech, "Beyond Vietnam -- A Time to Break Silence," at the Riverside Church in New York City in April of 1967.

Here is a page from the Riverside Church that explains why King spoke at the Riverside Church and the importance of King's ideas for America today. The main reason for his giving the speech is that he was invited to speak by a group called "Clergy and Laymen Concerned about Vietnam." As Mitchell K. Hall writes, this group was "the largest explicitly religious group formed to oppose the Indochina (Vietnam) War." The group had more than 40,000 members and included non-relgious members and members from different religions.

Thanks largely to the efforts of Martin Luther King Jr., in 1964, the United States of America declared equality between blacks and whites and the end to racial segregation (separation by the government of blacks and whites into different schools and different services). However, actually, there was no equality between them. In "Beyond Vietnam -- A Time to Break Silence," King said, "we have been repeatedly faced with the cruel (悲惨な) irony of watching 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." On TV or other media, they pretended that blacks and whites were equal.

"We were convinced that we could not limit our vision to certain rights for black people, but instead affirmed the conviction that America would never be free or saved from itself until the descendants of its slaves were loosed completely from the shackles they still wear."

In other words, King and many others were angry with the government because, at that time, the United States had been attacking Vietnam for seven years and, although the government of the United states had declared equality between blacks and whites, it gave no support to its own social justice programs because it was using a lot of money for the war in Vietnam. It is for this reason that King gave his speech.

As King said,

"And 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 living God. Beyond the calling of race or nation or creed is this vocation of sonship and brotherhood, and 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."

Many people criticized King because of his speech against the Vietnam War and against the government of the United States.

I think he has a very strong sense of justice. At the time that he gave the speech, many voices in the media criticized him. For instance, journalists Jeff Cohen and Norman Solomon write that, "Time magazine called it 'demagogic (デマの) slander (悪口) that sounded like a script for Radio Hanoi' (a communist radio station). The Washington Post made the patronizing comment (ひいきにする) that 'King has diminished his usefulness to his cause, his country, his people.' In other words, American mass media hated Martin Luther King Jr. They criticized (苦しめた) King in many ways.

However, King is a hero now, for there is a national holiday for him; but this speech is largely forgotten. I think that he took an enormous risk because his speech was against the government and against the entire country's values.

I think the government of the United States was mean because it did not keep its promise that blacks and whites would have equal rights. It wasted a lot of money on the Vietnam War instead of using it end poverty and injustice in America. I am disappointed with the U.S. government. Today, many Japanese have a lot of complaints about the Japanese government. I wish someone like Martin Luther King Jr. would appear in Japan someday.

Rie Ishitsuka

What is Martin Luther King Jr.'s "revolution of values"?

In his speech, "Beyond Vietnam -- A Time to Break Silence," Martin Luther King, Jr. talks about a "revolution of values." First, I will quote King, who said that he understood that, even though the government created a program to end poverty, "America would never invest the necessary funds or energies in rehabilitation of its poor so long as adventures like Vietnam continued to draw men and skills and money like some demonic destructive suction tube (バキューム)." In other words, American government was taking money and energies away from people for Vietnam War in spite of their promises to help the poor people.

That is to say, King was concerned for how war affects the moral values of the entire nation. He argued that, "when machines and computers, profit motives and property rights are considered more important than people, the evils of racism (人種差別主義), materialism (物質主義), and militarism (軍国主義) will not be defeated." In my understanding, this means that if things and money are thought more precious than people, these three systems will continue. King worried about it.



Here is how King put the point:

"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 re-ordering our priorities, so that the pursuit of peace will take precedence over the pursuit of war."
–"Beyond Vietnam: Breaking the Silence," April 4,1967

"A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.(社会を向上させるプログラムよりも、軍の防衛に年々多くのお金を使い続ける国家は精神的な死に近づいている。)"
-"Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community?," 1967 (This quote come from this Website)



The American government tried to defeat communism by killing people. King refused the system of communism, too, but he has a different idea from the government. He said, "communism will never be defeated by the use of atomic bombs or unclear weapons." He thought that communism will be defeated by changing people's values. If people continue racism, materialism, and militarism, communism will never disappear, because communism, despite all its problems, fought against racism and materialism.

I think that in spite of his speech, the American government hasn't changed. The value system of racism, materialism, and militarism remains. The government did a similar thing with its war in Iraq. I hope the American political system is reformed someday.

Masumi Fukuda