Wednesday, January 18, 2012

MLK's "Beyond Vietnam" speech


From what I gather, King gave this speech in response to the United States action against the Vietnam. He highly disagreed with the reasons that the U.S. joined, and continued to fight. As a country that was just learning to grow in it's rights for all people, he found it highly hypocritical that the U.S. went over and started to murder all of these people, when it could probably be solved in more rational, peaceful ways. Because he gave this speech, King became liked by everyone, including the president, who had took his words into consideration time and time again, before. One important thing from my research was that one of the reasons that the U.S. went to Vietnam was because they were a "major Communist country," when they were actually less than 25% communist. Also, I found it interesting that King spoke of all of this in truth, and was criticized so harshly afterwords, especially since he was such a leader right up until that moment. The full speech can be both read and heard at http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/mlkatimetobreaksilence.htm

12 comments:

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    1. MLK has really intrigued the American people. I admire his hard work

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  3. There are many reasons given and conspiracy theories why we went to war and stayed so long. My personal view is money. Many people got rich during the war.

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  4. It really is remarkable how much influence an African American man had at that time period. Most people think of Dr.King as a racial equality activist, and while he was that, he also protested other things successfully including Vietnam.

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    1. This is a good speech. I liked how he spoke on all truth.

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    2. I love Martin Luther Kings speeches. I wish I could speak half as well as he does. he knows how to say what so many think and I admire how brave he was to come out and say so much.

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  5. I agree with MLK. Entering this war over containment was not a smart idea. Surprised this didn't start WWIII

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  6. I don't get why they said they went there because is was a major Communist country, when you found that it was less than 25%.. they should have come up with a better answer for the people in my opinion.

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    1. i love how King doesn't care what everyone thinks. he just says what he believes in.

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  7. I agree with a lot of what MLK says in this speech. I do believe there were other reasons for the entrance of the US into the war, I think some of the reasons for us entering is overshadowed by all of the bad things that happened and all of the anti-war protest. Overall I do not want to conclude that the war was a complete failure or bad thing for the US until I do more research.

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