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Martin Luther King Jr.'s Beyond Vietnam

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Martin Luther King Jr. spoke his first antiwar speech, Beyond Vietnam, on April 4, 1967 at New York’s Riverside Church. This speech brings light on Martin Luther King Jr’s views and concerns on the Vietnam War. Kings audience for this speech wasn't the general public, but a congregation of Christians gathered at Riverside Church, King adapted his speech accordingly. Kings speech arose on the turmoil which was beginning to take place in Vietnam where a communist revolution was starting to take place thanks to Northern forces. The main reason America became involved was due to the United States governments desire to stop the spread of the communist revolution. The United States support in the fight caused for great division amongst the American …show more content…
He applauds those who stand firm in relating morality to the Vietnam War. King encourages others, that although there has been and will be opposition on his beliefs that he and others must continue to speak in order to see change. Martin Luther Kind Jr. realized that the public could question his opposition to the war being that he is a civil rights leader. Many people bring the idea to the table that cilvil rights and peace do not mix. King answers this with the thought that those who inquire this do not really know him and his heart, king even goes as far to say that they may not even know and fully comprehend the world in which they live in. A misunderstanding that King brings up is that to be a proper “patriot” men have to stay loyal to their government, especially when it comes to war. But if those men are being blindly led, how should they react? King offers a solution. Men must allow morality to have ruling over their views and thoughts when it comes to war, specifically in this case, the involvement of American troops in the Vietnam

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