Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence

==Aftermath==
King's opposition cost him significant support among white allies, including President Johnson, Billy Graham,{{citation needed|date=December 2021}} union leaders and powerful publishers.<ref name=MED08>{{cite book|last=Dyson|first=Michael Eric|title=April 4, 1968: Martin Luther King Jr.'s death and how it changed America|year=2008|publisher=Basic Civitas Books|isbn=978-0-465-00212-2|chapter=Facing Death|url=https://archive.org/details/april41968martin00dyso}}
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"The press is being stacked against me", King said,<ref>David J. Garrow, ''Bearing the Cross'' (1986), pp. 440, 445.
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complaining of what he described as a double standard that applauded his nonviolence at home, but deplored it when applied "toward little brown Vietnamese children."<ref name=Pierre2011>{{cite news|last=Pierre|first=Robert E.|title=Martin Luther King Jr. made our nation uncomfortable|url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/therootdc/post/martin-luther-king-jr-made-our-nation-uncomfortable/2011/10/16/gIQA78NPoL_blog.html|access-date=August 17, 2012|newspaper=The Washington Post|date=October 16, 2011}}
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''[[Life (magazine)|Life]]'' magazine called the speech "demagogic slander that sounded like a script for [[Radio Hanoi]]",{{sfn|Robbins|2007|p=109}} and ''[[The Washington Post]]'' declared that King had "diminished his usefulness to his cause, his country, his people."<ref name=Pierre2011 />{{sfn|Lawson|Payne|Patterson|2006|p=148}}

[[File:Martin Luther King Jr St Paul Campus U MN.jpg|thumb|King speaking to an anti-Vietnam war rally at the [[University of Minnesota]] in St. Paul, April 27, 1967]]
The "Beyond Vietnam" speech reflected King's evolving political advocacy in his later years, which paralleled the teachings of the progressive [[Highlander Research and Education Center]], with which he was affiliated.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Harding |first1=James Martin |last2=Rosenthal |first2=Cindy |title=Restaging the Sixties: Radical Theaters and Their Legacies |date=2006 |publisher=University of Michigan Press |isbn=978-0-472-06954-5 |page=297 }}
</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Lentz |first1=Richard |title=Symbols, the News Magazines and Martin Luther King |date=1999 |publisher=LSU Press |isbn=978-0-8071-2524-3 |page=64 }}
</ref> King began to speak of the need for fundamental changes in the political and economic life of the nation, and more frequently expressed his opposition to the war and his desire to see a redistribution of resources to correct racial and economic injustice.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Ling |first1=Peter John |title=Martin Luther King, Jr |date=2002 |publisher=Psychology Press |isbn=978-0-415-21664-7 |page=277 }}</ref> He guarded his language in public to avoid being linked to [[communism]] by his enemies, but in private he sometimes spoke of his support for [[democratic socialism]].<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Sturm |first1=Douglas |title=Martin Luther King, Jr., as Democratic Socialist |journal=The Journal of Religious Ethics |date=1990 |volume=18 |issue=2 |pages=79–105 |jstor=40015109 }}</ref><ref>{{cite book |editor1-last=West |editor1-first=Cornel |title=The Radical King |date=2015 |publisher=Beacon Press |isbn=978-0-8070-1283-3 }}{{page needed|date=January 2023}}</ref>

In a 1952 letter to Coretta Scott, he said: "I imagine you already know that I am much more socialistic in my economic theory than capitalistic&nbsp;..."<ref>{{cite news |last1=Hendricks |first1=Obery M. |title=The Uncompromising Anti-Capitalism of Martin Luther King Jr. |url=https://www.huffpost.com/entry/the-uncompromising-anti-capitalism-of-martin-luther-king-jr_b_4629609 |work=HuffPost |date=20 January 2014 }}</ref> In one speech, he stated that "something is wrong with capitalism" and claimed, "There must be a better distribution of wealth, and maybe America must move toward a democratic socialism."<ref>{{cite book|title=Liberating Visions: Human Fulfillment and Social Justice in African-American Thought|last=Franklin|first=Robert Michael|page= 125| publisher =Fortress Press|year=1990|isbn=0-8006-2392-4}}
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King had read [[Karl Marx|Marx]] while at Morehouse, but while he rejected "traditional capitalism", he also rejected communism because of its "materialistic interpretation of history" that denied religion, its "ethical relativism", and its "political totalitarianism."<ref>{{cite book|page=[https://archive.org/details/martinlutherking00king_0/page/39 39]|last1=King|title=The Martin Luther King Jr. Companion: Quotations from the Speeches, Essays, and Books of Martin Luther King, Jr.|first1=Martin Luther Jr.|first2=Coretta Scott|last2=King|first3=Dexter Scott|last3=King|isbn=0-312-19990-2|publisher=St. Martin's Press|year=1998|url=https://archive.org/details/martinlutherking00king_0/page/39}}</ref>

King also stated in "Beyond Vietnam" that "true compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar&nbsp;... it comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring."<ref name="Zinn 2002">{{cite book|title=The Power of Nonviolence: Writings by Advocates of Peace|last=Zinn|first=Howard|publisher=Beacon Press|isbn=0-8070-1407-9|year=2002|pages=[https://archive.org/details/powerofnonviolen0000unse_y5s7/page/122 122–123]|url=https://archive.org/details/powerofnonviolen0000unse_y5s7/page/122}}
</ref> King quoted a United States official who said that from Vietnam to Latin America, the country was "on the wrong side of a world revolution."<ref name="Zinn 2002" /> King condemned America's "alliance with the landed gentry of Latin America", and said that the U.S. should support "the shirtless and barefoot people" in the [[Third World]] rather than suppressing their attempts at revolution.<ref name="Zinn 2002" />

King's stance on Vietnam encouraged [[Allard K. Lowenstein]], [[William Sloane Coffin]] and [[Norman Thomas]], with the support of anti-war Democrats, to attempt to persuade King to run against President Johnson in the [[1968 United States presidential election]]. King contemplated but ultimately decided against the proposal on the grounds that he felt uneasy with politics and considered himself better suited for his morally unambiguous role as an activist.<ref>{{cite magazine|last1=Engler|first1=Mark|last2=Engler|first2=Paul|title=Why Martin Luther King Didn't Run for President|url=https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/why-martin-luther-king-didnt-run-for-president-20160118|access-date=March 16, 2017|magazine=[[Rolling Stone]]|date=January 18, 2016}}</ref>

On April 15, 1967, King participated and spoke at an anti-war march from Manhattan's Central Park to the [[United Nations]]. The march was organized by the [[Spring Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam]] and initiated by its chairman, James Bevel. At the U.N. King also brought up issues of civil rights and the draft.

{{blockquote|I have not urged a mechanical fusion of the civil rights and peace movements. There are people who have come to see the moral imperative of equality, but who cannot yet see the moral imperative of world brotherhood. I would like to see the fervor of the civil-rights movement imbued into the peace movement to instill it with greater strength. And I believe everyone has a duty to be in both the civil-rights and peace movements. But for those who presently choose but one, I would hope they will finally come to see the moral roots common to both.<ref>{{cite news|url=http://www.upi.com/Audio/Year_in_Review/Events-of-1967/Protests/12303074818188-15/ |title=1967 Year In Review |work=United Press International |access-date=November 30, 2010 |archive-date=January 5, 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130105083038/http://www.upi.com/Audio/Year_in_Review/Events-of-1967/Protests/12303074818188-15/ |url-status=live |df=mdy }}</ref>}}

The same year, King nominated Buddhist monk [[Thich Nhat Hanh]] for the Nobel Peace Prize, but the prize was not awarded to anyone that year.<ref name=thichking>{{cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/21/world/asia/thich-nhat-hanh-dead.html|title=Thich Nhat Hanh, Zen Master and Political Reformer, Dies at 95|first=Seth|last=Mydans|work=The New York Times|date=January 21, 2022|accessdate=January 21, 2022}}</ref> Thich Nhat Hanh, who publicly held a news conference in Chicago with King in 1966, was acknowledged for urging King to oppose the Vietnam War.<ref name=thichking />
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