Civil Rights Events

Dr. King and the Vietnam War

The Time Has Come

By the end of 1966, large numbers of American soldiers have been fighting in Vietnam for almost two years and close to 400,000 of them are "in country" with more serving aboard Navy ships in the South China Sea and at air bases in Thailand, Guam, and elsewhere.

The Viet Cong rebels the U.S. military has been fighting for almost two years have been a melange of Communists, Buddhists, nationalists, religious sects, students, and peasant associations in a coalition called the National Liberation Front (NLF). To the surprise of the Cold-War liberals running the White House, they not only refuse to surrender in the face of overwhelming American might but their resistance has intensified — resistance that is now bolstered by units of the North Vietnamese Army.

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As American casualties mount higher and higher, more troops have to be sent than Pentagon planners had originally estimated. To meet the insatiable demand, the number of young men conscripted into the military is increased. By the end of 1966 over half of the American military personnel serving in the war zone have been directly — or indirectly — coerced into uniform by the draft. Known as "Selective Service," the draft is a biased system. Blacks, Latinos and poor whites are more likely to be "selected" for conscription (or pressured into volunteering) than middle and upper-class whites. In the words of a popular anti-war slogan, it's a, "Rich man's war and a poor man's fight."

Conscription becomes even more skewed towards the poor and uneducated in August of 1966 when "Project 100,000" significantly lowers the minimum qualification-test scores required for induction into the Army. In the 1960s, Blacks comprise 11% of the population yet more than 40% of those entering the service as part of Project 100,000 are Afro-American — and their casualty rates are double those of men who enter the service through other routes.

Despite these race and class disparities, overall public opinion still supports Johnson and his war. In March of 1965 when LBJ first sends combat units to Vietnam more than 60% of Americans approve of his action and barely 20% oppose it. Two years later in April of 1967, support for the war has dropped to 50% and opposition has risen to 32%. Though in two years his majority has shrunk its still a majority nonetheless.

The Johnson administration promotes the war as a struggle to "defend democracy," a democracy that by 1967 seems increasingly remote for nonwhites in America. Yet while support for the war among Afro-Americans and Latinos lags behind that of whites a majority also continue to back LBJ's policies — in part out of respect for Johnson's commitment to civil rights. And "mainstream Negro leaders," Afro-American politicians, NAACP and Urban League officers, and a significant portion of the Black press, help sustain Black support for the Vietnam War by publicly condemning those who question it. They warn that civil rights activists who speak out on foreign affairs endanger the freedom cause. (Many of them are the same "leaders" who also condemn sit-ins, civil disobedience, mass protest marches, and armed self-defense as "harmful" to Black social progress in America.)

For a large portion of the American population, dissent against Cold War ideology is "un-American." For conservatives and right-wingers, anyone who opposes military action against the "Red Menace" is a traitor. For the liberal establishment, including many labor leaders and influential clergymen, criticizing Johnson's anti-Communist foreign policy is tantamount to heresy. Outside of college campuses and away from university towns, anti-war protesters are often met with widespread hostility — and occasionally violence.

Anti-war activists are harshly condemned by the political establishment. To law enforcement officers and many campus authorities, anti-war students are subversive enemies of all that is right and holy in America. And in homes across the nation, families are split into warring generations when young opponents of the war and the draft come into bitter conflict with parents proud of their patriotic service during the Second World War (War 1-4).

Most Americans remember Martin Luther King Jr. for his dream of what this country could be, a nation where his children would “not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.” While those words from 1963 are necessary, his speech “Beyond Vietnam,” from 1967, is actually the more insightful one.

It is also a much more dangerous and disturbing speech, which is why far fewer Americans have heard of it. And yet it is the speech that we needed to hear then–and need to hear today.

… By 1967, the war was near its peak, with about 500,000 American soldiers in Vietnam. The U.S. would drop more explosives on Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia than it did on all of Europe during World War II, and the news brought vivid images depicting the carnage inflicted on Southeast Asian civilians, hundreds of thousands of whom would die. It was in this context that King called the U.S. “the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today” (Nguyen 1).

As a man of God, Dr. King rejects Communism for it's antagonism to religion and as a humanist he opposes its anti-democratic totalitarianism. As a pacifist, he opposes all wars, and as an opponent of colonialism he sees the Vietnamese struggle as a nationalist revolt against an oppressive and corrupt government imposed by foreign powers. As a minister committed to the social gospel, he's dismayed by the damage the war is doing to both American and Vietnamese societies and he's distraught by the negative effects of spending national treasure on bullets and bombs rather than alleviating poverty and human suffering. And as a recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize, he sees it as his duty to speak out on issues of war and peace.

But ever since the Montgomery Bus Boycott, King and SCLC have used nonviolent protests to pressure the federal government to enforce existing laws and enact new civil rights legislation. This strategy, however, relies on political support from the liberal wing of the northern Democratic Party establishment. Now, as SCLC begins to shift its focus from southern segregation and denial of voting rights to national issues of economic justice that challenge business practices in the North, some of that support is drying up. Confronting LBJ over Vietnam will cause more establishment liberals to turn away on all issues — not just the war — so much so that it may become impossible to win passage of important new civil rights laws, or convince Johnson to take executive action against housing and employment discrimination.

King is also the head of a major social-justice organization, and with that role comes responsibilities. Public figures who challenge the Johnson administration face condemnation, ostracism, and retribution against not only themselves but also the organizations they are associated with. Which is why most of SCLC's key activists and supporters caution Dr. King against speaking out in opposition to the Vietnam War. Some of SCLC's board members are vulnerable to political and economic retaliation from the Democratic Party and liberal establishment. So too are pastors of SCLC-affiliated churches, as are prominent supporters. And the bulk of the organization's funding now comes from northern liberals, many of whom are loyal Democrats who support the war and the administration's Cold War policies.

Within the broadly defined Freedom Movement, Dr. King occupies the vital center between militant, youth-led groups like CORE and SNCC and more conservative organizations like the NAACP, National Council of Negro Women, and Urban League. King is determined to hold the Movement together as a united force for equality and social justice. He knows that if opponents manage to divide the major Afro-American organizations against each other they can stymie all future progress. As SNCC and CORE begin to take increasingly strong stands against the Vietnam War, Roy Wilkins of the NAACP and Whitney Young of the Urban League remain committed to maintaining good relations with LBJ and the liberal establishment. They adamantly support Johnson' Vietnam policy and they relentlessly pressure King to mute his anti-war statements.

For whites in general, Dr. King speaks for Afro-Americans on political and social issues. For many whites, he is the only Black notable they can name outside of athletes and entertainers. Therefore, at least to some extent King's actions and politics affect how Blacks in general are treated by whites. Within the Black community, most Afro-Americans are patriotic and as 1966 comes to an end the majority support President Johnson and his Vietnam War (though not by as large a percentage as among whites). And while King is still widely admired for his past achievements, his influence and leadership are under constant challenge. The majority of his fellow Black Baptist ministers, for example, reject his social activism and their churches do not support SCLC or engage in political efforts (Road 1-3).

As early as the first months of 1965, even before Johnson had begun his troop buildup in Vietnam, Dr. King was calling for a negotiated settlement to the conflict, telling journalists, “I’m much more than a civil-rights leader.” But his criticism of the government’s refusal to halt widespread aerial bombing and pursue peace talks attracted little public comment until that fall, when Senator Thomas Dodd of Connecticut, a close ally of Johnson, attacked Dr. King and cited an obscure 1799 criminal statute, the Logan Act, that prohibited private citizens from interacting with foreign governments.

Dr. King was privately distraught over the war and Dodd’s response. The F.B.I.’s wiretapping of his closest advisers overheard him telling them “how immoral this is. I think someone should outline how wrong we are.” But he reluctantly agreed that he should “withdraw temporarily” from denouncing the war. “Sometimes the public is not ready to digest the truth,” he said.

Dr. King remained relatively mute about the war through most of 1966, but by year’s end he was expressing private disgust at how increased military spending had torn a gaping budget hole in Johnson’s Great Society domestic programs. “Everything we’re talking about really boils down to the fact that we have this war on our hands,” Dr. King said in yet another wiretapped phone call.

Finally, in early 1967, he had had enough. One day Dr. King pushed aside a plate of food while paging through a magazine whose photographs depicted the burn wounds suffered by Vietnamese children who had been struck by napalm. The images were unforgettable, he said. “I came to the conclusion that I could no longer remain silent about an issue that was destroying the soul of our nation” (Garrow 1-2).

In late January Dr. King temporarily relocates to Jamaica for the seclusion he needs to write Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community? Vietnam weighs heavy on his conscience. Though he has publicly questioned the war, urged negotiations, and bemoaned its effect on poverty and public morality, he knows that out of pragmatic caution he has held back from speaking forthrightly about Vietnam from his heart and his head. He determines that the time has now come for him to break his public silence, to take his stand and speak truth to power regardless of consequences. No longer will he curtail his public statements because of how Johnson, liberal Democrats, and conservative Black leaders might react.

On February 25, 1967, Dr. King joins Senators Gruening (D-AK), Hatfield (D-OR), McCarthy (D-MN) and McGovern (D-SD) — all of whom have come out against the war — at an anti-war conference organized by Nation magazine in [Beverly Hills] Southern California. In a speech titled, "The Casualties of the War in Vietnam," King tells 1,500 people that "The promises of the Great Society have been shot down on the battlefields of Vietnam," and he speaks of a million Vietnamese children burned by napalm in a war that violates the United Nations Charter and the principle of self-determination, cripples the antipoverty program, and undermines the constitutional right of dissent.

At the same time, he distances himself from those in SNCC, CORE, and SDS whose politics are increasingly being rooted in disillusioned hatred of America by positioning himself as a patriot with a vision of a better nation:

"Let me say finally that I oppose the war in Vietnam because I love America. I speak out against it not in anger but with anxiety and sorrow in my heart, and above all with a passionate desire to see our beloved country stand as the moral example of the world. I speak against this war because I am disappointed with America. There can be no disappointment when there is not great love" (Road 4).

King's fiery aide James Bevel has been given leave from SCLC to organize the first major mass-mobilization protest against the war — a march from New York's Central Park to the United Nations on April 15, 1967. King decides that … he will march … and share a speaker's platform with war opponents from a wide range of political viewpoints including radicals urging men to resist the draft, socialists condemning capitalism, and revolutionary communists calling for a Viet Cong victory over American GIs.

With the exception of Bevel, almost all of Dr. King's closest advisors argue against his decision. Strenuously. He understands their political concerns but remains adamant. "I'm going to march," he tells them.

An opportunity for King to march against the war comes sooner than expected. On March 25th, 1967, he joins Dr. Benjamin Spock in leading 5,000 people through the Loop in the Chicago Area Peace Parade (Road 3-4)

King’s presentation in Beverly Hills and appearance in Chicago received modest press coverage, and in their wake Dr. King told Stanley Levison, long his closest adviser: “I can no longer be cautious about this matter. I feel so deep in my heart that we are so wrong in this country and the time has come for a real prophecy and I’m willing to go that road” (Garrow 3).

King's advisors fear media coverage of the April 15th mass protest will (as usual) focus on the most radical and sensational rather than the most thoughtful and profound. Andrew Young arranges for CALCAV, which now has 68 chapters nationwide, to invite King to give a major anti-war address on April 4th in the historic Riverside Church. Vincent Harding and others begin helping King with the text of his speech.

The SCLC board meets in Louisville KY where SCLC is supporting mass protests against residential segregation and Hosea Williams is threatening that "streakers" will disrupt the famed Kentucky Derby horse race. Dr. King meets with boxing champion Muhammad Ali who has announced he will defy his draft notice and refuse induction into the armed forces. King supports Ali. "My position on the draft is very clear, I'm against it," he tells reporters.

But many of SCLC's 57 board members still oppose King's stand against the war — some out of anti-Communist fervor, others because SCLC donations have dropped by 40% and they fear the consequences of going too far down the anti-Vietnam War road. Though it's now less than a week before King is to speak at Riverside, they vote down a resolution calling for SCLC to oppose the war. Eventually, they agree to a watered-down version so as not to "embarrass" King, their president (Road 4-5).

Works cited:

Garrow, David J. “When Martin Luther King Came Out Against Vietnam.” The New York Times. April 4, 2017. Web. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/04/opinion/when-martin-luther-king-came-out-against-vietnam.html

Nguyen, Viet Thanh. “The MLK Speech We Need Today Is Not the One We Remember Most.” Time. January 17, 2019. Web. https://time.com/5505453/martin-luther-king-beyond-vietnam/

“The Road to Riverside.” Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence. Dr. King and the Vietnam War. Civil Rights Movement History & Timeline 1967. Web. https://www.crmvet.org/tim/timhis67.htm#1967vietking

“The War.” Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence. Dr. King and the Vietnam War. Civil Rights Movement History & Timeline 1967. Web. https://www.crmvet.org/tim/timhis67.htm#1967vietking