Media Advisory for 50th Anniversary of MLK's Speech at Riverside Church

MEDIA ADVISORY 

CONTACT: Ira Arlook, Fenton Communications, c: 202 258-5437 

Terry Provance Vietnam Peace Commemoration Committee, terryprovance@gmail.com, 202 686-7483

Famous MLK Anti-War Speech Draws New Attention 50 Years Later

The prophetic anti-war speech given by Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. on April 4, 1967 is drawing attention from today's activists young and old. Sponsored by Clergy and Laity Concerned and delivered at the Riverside Church in New York City to an overflow crowd, Dr. King's controversial "Beyond Vietnam: A Time To Break Silence," marked a turning point in bringing together the civil rights, anti-poverty and antiwar causes. 

The speech is now being used to call attention to the ongoing reality of the racism, materialism and militarism triplets and other issues identified by Dr. King in the speech given 50 years ago. His profound challenge to the status quo domestically and internationally led to 200 critical editorials, including in the New York Times and Washington Post.

"I am convinced that if we are to get on the right side of the world revolution, we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. We must rapidly begin the shift from a 'thing-oriented' society to a 'person-oriented' society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered. … We are confronted by the fierce urgency of Now." 

--Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. at Riverside Church

An array of events rooted in the message of the speech will continue through the year until April 4, 2018, the 50th anniversary of Dr. King's assassination. Sponsors include the Vietnam Peace Commemoration Committee, The National Council of Elders, Riverside Church, and The Shalom Center. 

They include events as varied as 40 days of Lenten devotions which began March 1, to an April 18 tax day protest in Oakland CA, and many other observances.

On April 2d "Finding Common Ground: Linking the Struggles against Poverty Racism and War" will be discussed at 4 p.m. in South Bend, Indiana by representatives from Kroc Institute, Civil Rights Heritage Center and South Bend Heritage Foundation. In Detroit, Congressman John Conyers will participate in the reading of the speech. 

Speaking at the Chicago Temple at 1:30 on April 2d is Sherri Bevel, co-founder of the Addie Wyatt Center for Nonviolence Training and the daughter of civil rights legends James Bevel and Diane Nash.  www.chipeaceaction.org

On April 3, in Detroit, Michigan, defendants charged with various offenses for impeding the shut off of water to poor Detroiters will read the speech in front of the 36th District Courthouse where they await trial or verdicts.

Riverside Church will live-stream a discussion about the speech between Michelle Alexander, author of The New Jim Crow and longtime activist Ruby Sales on April 4 beginning at 7 PM EDT. http://www.beyondthedream50.org/events/beyond-vietnam-50th-anniversary

"I knew that 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. So I was increasingly compelled to see the war as an enemy of the poor and to attack it as such. " 

--Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. at Riverside Church

From 1:00 – 2:30 PM, April 4, a program at the Church Center for the United Nations will discuss the relevance of the speech to the UN. The program includes Ambassador Anwarul K. Chowdhury, Former Under-Secretary-General and High Representative of the United Nations. It is sponsored by the Committee of Religious NGOs at the United Nations and the Chaplain's Office, Church Center for the UN. 

The speech will also be the foundation of interfaith, intergenerational dialogue and workshops at New York Ave. Presbyterian Church in Washington DC on April 4, from 12:30 -5 PM organized by The Shalom Center. The day will culminate with a multireligious Call to Prayerful Action, including talks by Rev. Aundreia Alexander, Bishop Dwayne Royster (Political Director, PICO National Network), and Congressman Jamie Raskin. At 5 p.m. participants will March to the White House where they will hold a vigil. 

A panel of experts at Stanford University will discuss the speech at 7 p.m. on April 4th sponsored by The Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute. Included are author and television personality Tavis Smiley, King legal advisor Clarence B. Jones, and King Institute director Clayborne Carson. https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/events/fiftieth-anniversary-martin-luther-king-jr-s-most-controversial-speech-beyond-vietnam

"Surely this madness must cease. We must stop now. I speak as a child of God and brother to the suffering poor of Vietnam. I speak for those whose land is being laid waste, whose homes are being destroyed, whose culture is being subverted. I speak for the poor in America who are paying the double price of smashed hopes at home, and dealt death and corruption in Vietnam. I speak as a citizen of the world, for the world as it stands aghast at the path we have taken. I speak as one who loves America, to the leaders of our own nation: The great initiative in this war is ours; the initiative to stop it must be ours. " 

--Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. at Riverside Church

Veterans for Peace Chapter 61 is doing a reading of the speech in St Louis and installing a Peace Pole at the Tomas Dunn Learning Center in a local public park on April 4. Former staff of the Mennonite Central Committee in Vietnam are hosting a reading in their home in Harrisonburg, VA.

Chicago will witness King linked events on April 4th organized by Teachers for Social Justice with a rally at Federal Plaza at 3:30 and a teach-in at the Teachers Union at 5:30. Veterans for Peace is co-sponsoring a community reading followed by hands-on art development and discussion at 7:30 pm at the First Unitarian Church in Hyde Park.

In Cincinnati the King program will be sponsored by the Metropolitan Area Religious Coalition of Greater Cincinnati with the Faith Community Alliance and the Cincinnati Branch of the NAACP.

"Acting in the Spirit of Dr. King: Now Is Our Time to Break Silence" is being organized in Los Angeles by the Interfaith Movement for Human Integrity and Justice Not Jails at 7 p.m April 4th in the Macedonia Baptist Church.

The U.S. Department of Arts and Culture (not a government agency) is sponsoring a day of creative action across the U.S. on April 4th, collaborating with many partners. including Alternate ROOTS; Arts & Democracy; Barefoot Artists; The Dinner Party; Forecast Public Art; Hollaback!; Native Arts & Cultures Foundation; New Economy Coalition; New Poor People's Campaign; Spark Movement; WomenArts; and #100DAYS100DINNERS.

The Grass Roots Movement for Social Justice has called upon its 50 local groups to organize or join April 4th events linked to their agenda for "Indigenous Sovereignty, Self Determination for Black and Brown communities, visions for expanded sanctuary, Just Transition, grassroots feminism, LGBTQIA rights and economic justice for workers, renters, the unemployed and the poor."

"If we continue, there will be no doubt in my mind and in the mind of the world that we have no honorable intentions in Vietnam. If we do not stop our war against the people of Vietnam immediately, the world will be left with no other alternative than to see this as some horrible, clumsy, and deadly game we have decided to play. The world now demands a maturity of America that we may not be able to achieve. It demands that we admit we have been wrong from the beginning of our adventure in Vietnam, that we have been detrimental to the life of the Vietnamese people. The situation is one in which we must be ready to turn sharply from our present ways. In order to atone for our sins and errors in Vietnam, we should take the initiative in bringing a halt to this tragic war. " 

--Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. at Riverside Church

In Des Moines, on April 9, at 3 p.m. a procession led by a donkey will start from Grace United Methodist Church, 38th & Cottage Grove and end with a prayer service at First Christian Church, 25th & University. Actor Aaron Smith will reenact Dr King's sermon. 

A six week Lenten study series based on King's address takes place on Wednesday evenings at Circle of Mercy Congregation in Asheville, North Carolina.

April 18th, Tax Day, a broad spectrum of California Bay Area citizens will read Dr. King's speech at 12 noon, 2 p.m. and 6 p.m. from the steps of the Federal Building in Oakland, CA. 

The 2017 Ecumenical Advocacy Days of the National Council of Churches of Christ in Crystal City, VA on April 21 will use the speech to "analyze the Christian foundations of their common work to create the 'Beloved Community' where the social, political, and economic rights of all are respected and people are able to realize their full potential as children of God." http://www.advocacydays.org/2017-confronting-chaos/pre-conference-event

Also on the weekend of April 21-23 the Cape Cod Council of Churches and university programs at Cape Cod Community College and Boston University will undertake readings, music and potluck meals. King did his post-graduate studies at Boston University. 

Many other events are taking place in classrooms, churches, community centers and other locations.

"A true revolution of values will lay hand on the world order and say of war, 'This way of settling differences is not just.' This business of burning human beings with napalm, of filling our nation’s homes with orphans and widows, of injecting poisonous drugs of hate into the veins of peoples normally humane, of sending men home from dark and bloody battlefields physically handicapped and psychologically deranged, cannot be reconciled with wisdom, justice, and love. A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death." 

--Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. at Riverside Church

The Vietnam Peace Commemoration Committee came together in 2015 to encourage an accurate portrayal of the 50th anniversary of the Vietnam war and of the role of the peace movement in ending it. VPCC grew out of a broadly supported challenge to the Pentagon's one-sided commemoration of the war and the May 1-2, 2015 conference in Washington, "Vietnam: The Power of Protest". Its perspective on the speech anniversary can be found here http://vnpeacecomm.blogspot.com/2017/03/a-call-to-break-silence.html

The National Council of Elders was born out of a vision shared by Dr. Vincent Harding, Rev. James Lawson and his brother Rev. Phil Lawson to engage 20th century organizers committed to the theory and practice of nonviolence with organizers of the 21st century.   www.kingandbreakingsilence.com

The contacts below can supply additional details and arrange interviews.

Vietnam Peace Commemoration Committee--Terry Provance: terryprovance@gmail.com, 202 686-7483 

National Council of Elders--Frank Joyce: fjoyce512@gmail.com; 313.825.1117 

The Shalom Center—Rabbi Arthur Waskow: awaskow@theshalomcenter.org; (215) 844-8494 

Riverside Church— http://www.beyondthedream50.org/ 

U.S. Department of Arts and Culture, #RevolutionOfValues--Arlene Goldbard: arlene@arlenegoldbard.com; 415-690-9992

http://tinyurl.com/Kingprograms 

http://www.kingandbreakingsilence.com

www.MLK50.org 

http://www.beyondthedream50.org/ 

https://radicaldiscipleship.net/

Video excerpts from a 2016 reading of the speech at Central Methodist Church in Detroit are here: https://vimeo.com/198735673

A PBS documentary by Tavis Smiley on King's speech and the controversy it generated can be seen here http://www.pbs.org/wnet/tavissmiley/tsr/mlk-a-call-to-conscience/  

The full text of the speech can be read here http://kingencyclopedia.stanford.edu/encyclopedia/documentsentry/doc_beyond_vietnam/




For updates, go to http://tinyurl.com/Kingprograms

and http://www.kingandbreakingsilence.com/calendar/

In Memorium Marilyn Young

To contribute to this space, send remembrances of Marilyn to jmcauliff@ffrd.org

photo by John Ketwig  "We were up on the Blue Ridge Parkway, and she was relaxed and just having fun."

Three Stars

“Look up in the sky, up towards the northThere are three new stars brightly shining forthThey’re shining oh – so bright from heaven aboveGee, we’re gonna miss you, everybody sends their love”

Those words, from the song “Three Stars”, were composed by one Tommy Dee (Thomas Donaldson) in 1959 as a tribute to Ritchie Valens, Buddy Holly, and J.P. “The Big Bopper” Richardson who were killed in a plane crash earlier that year, an event remembered as “The day the music died” in Don McLean’s classic 1972 song “American Pie.”   I readily admit that I am overly influenced by the truths and insights so abundant in the popular music of the sixties and seventies.   I was overjoyed when Bob Dylan was recently awarded a Nobel Prize in literature for the lyrics of his life’s work. 

This morning’s second cup of coffee has grown cold as I sit stunned and contemplate the recent loss of three influential anti-war activists.   Tom Hayden left us on October 23^rd, 2016; Charlie Liteky on January 20^th of this year, and Marilyn Young on February 19^th.   They emerged from varied backgrounds, and spoke from different soap boxes, but their voices were clear and optimistic.   They were vivid, effective soloists from the great chorus of American voices opposed to militarism and repression.   Above all, these three personalities valued the lives of every human being near and far.   They dared to believe that governments should exist to organize the world’s various societies, not to annihilate the poor or powerless or force compliance at the point of a gun.  

Tom Hayden was brilliant, imaginative, and committed.   Perhaps the most effective spokesman for the “student unrest” of the sixties, he helped found Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), was a “freedom rider”, and dared to suggest a “radically new democratic political movement” in a document known as the Port Huron Statement, the theoretical manifesto of the “New Left”.   At the height of the war in Vietnam he traveled to Hanoi and reported upon the damage American bombing had done to civilian neighborhoods, schools, and hospitals.   He helped to organize the protests at the 1968 Democratic National Convention, and stood trial as one of the “Chicago Seven.”    Along with (his second) wife Jane Fonda he inspired dissent and resistance to the Vietnam War until its end, and advocated for amnesty for draft evaders after the hostilities ended.   He became a powerful spokesman for the environment, animal rights, solar energy, and renters’ rights and was elected to the California State Assembly (1982 – 1992) and State Senate (1992 – 2000).   Tom Hayden was a tireless progressive activist and educator.   In 2015, in response to the Obama administration and the Pentagon’s “50^th Anniversary Commemoration” of the Vietnam War, he organized a national reunion of peace activists and accomplished some reluctant acknowledgement  of the historical importance of the Vietnam anti-war movement.  His last of 19 books, HELL NO: The Forgotten Power of the Vietnam Peace Movement was published by Yale University Press in January of this year.  The final sentence declares “Mistakes were made, serious mistakes, but our America is a better place because we stood up against all odds.”   The same can be said of Vietnam Veterans Against the War. 

I have previously submitted an article for this issue of The Veteran remembering the life of Charlie Liteky.   He was a Catholic Chaplain in Vietnam, accompanying an infantry patrol when they were ambushed.   Charlie crawled out under withering fire and dragged or carried twenty men to safety despite being wounded twice, an action that earned the Congressional Medal of Honor.   In the 1980s he left the priesthood and married Judy, a former nun, and became aware of America’s involvements in Central America.   He traveled to Nicaragua, El Salvador, and Guatemala, and to protest what he had seen there became the first American in history to give back the CMOH.   Charlie was one of four vets who fasted on the steps of the Capital in protest of the Reagan administration’s policies toward Central America, and that widely-publicized fast probably prevented a full US military invasion of Nicaragua.   Years later, Charlie was on the streets of Baghdad in 2003 when America’s “Shock and Awe” bombs were falling upon the citizens of Iraq.  Charlie Liteky’s autobiography will be published later this year. 

Marilyn Young was a Professor of History at New York University, with a determined anti-war and militarism voice that was heard world-wide.   The NY Times obituary described her as “a towering figure in the history of US foreign relations, a celebrated critical historian of the Vietnam War and US intervention overseas.   But her prominence as a scholar was matched by the strength of her political convictions, and by her unwavering use of her public platform to fight misogyny, US empire, and unending war.”   The author of numerous books, her 1973 American Expansionism was one of the first to recognize a recurrent theme of militarism supporting American imperialism since the Civil War.  A determined feminist, her Promissory Notes: Women and the Transition to Socialism examined feminine roles in revolutionary movements in second and third world countries around the globe.  Marilyn Young’s best-known book is The Vietnam Wars 1945 – 1990, a meticulously documented but very humanistic examination of “our war” and the Cold War policies and ideologies that fueled its fury.   On the liner notes, Howard Zinn called it “a marvelous achievement”, and noted that it had been “written with grace, wit, and passion.”    That is a wonderful description of Marilyn Young!  Marilyn could use words like a swordsman uses a rapier, but her intellectual brilliance was balanced by an infinite sense of humor.   She loved a good laugh, single malt Scotch, and good, caring people.   She was distraught over America’s ongoing follies in the Middle East, and dismayed at the election of Donald Trump.  I have a favorite photograph of her, relaxing on our back porch while a deer wandered past the door.     

The Vietnam era was a time of great passions, appalling truths but enthusiastic hopes, and lofty ideas.   Some were written, some came as songs, and many were shouted in the streets or on campuses.   Most of America’s history since that time has inspired continued outrage, and Tom Hayden, Charlie Liteky, and Marilyn Young used their talents to storm and shout in the face of our country’s deadly policies and cultural calamities.   They spent their lives inspiring us to believe that something far better was possible, against all odds.  Looking up at the sky tonight, I hope we can all recognize three new stars.   As the second verse of Tommy Dee’s song states:

“With your stars shining through the dark and lonely night
To light the path and show the way, the way that’s rightGee, we’re going to miss you, everybody sends their love.” 

John Ketwig

(This article was written for the upcoming Memorial Day edition of The Veteran.  John is the author of "...and a hard rain fell: A G.I.'s True Story of the Vietnam War" originally published by Macmillan in 1985, currently available in its 25th reprinting by SOURCEBOOKS)

The following originally appeared on the site of the Vietnam Studies Group:

I knew Marilyn was sick and heard from others that she was in decline, but I'd been in touch with her recently and was heartened by her reassuring words and seeming good spirits. Links to important articles and reports that she wished to share showed up in my in-box right to the end and I chose to imagine that somehow she would fight her way through. 

Marilyn was brilliant, loyal, principled, and sweet natured -- and also not afraid of anybody. I am sure I was not the only one to count on her to be in the front line when it was time to protest and resist. I am so sad that she is gone. 

David Hunt

I have never met Marilyn, though I've been corresponding with her for a year. 

When I started the Mekong Review in October 2015 I had less than four weeks to put together the magazine. The deadline was the Kampot Writers & Readers Festival, held in the south of Cambodia in early November, and I wanted the magazine to be launched there and then. The enterprise was hare-brained, but for some reason I was confident I could pull it off. I conceived the Mekong Review as a literary and political magazine - it's on mainland Southeast Asia so politics was unavoidable - so I needed something substantial to lead the premier edition. 

At the time, the first part of Niall Ferguson's biography on Henry Kissinger had been released, and I saw my chance. I wrote to every name in the Vietnam/American war/foreign policy firmament, and of course everyone said no. I didn't blame them; here I was, someone they had never heard of, asking them to read a large book on a substantial subject and write a considered review in a week and a bit. 

In a fit of frustration - the magazine's success, I was adamant, rested on this review - I wrote an angry young man's email to Marilyn, someone, as I said, I have never met, though of course I know her by reputation. I said, in short, I'm writing to you from Cambodia, a country which bore the brunt of the US's anti-communist crusade in the 1960s; a reign of terror that killed and maimed thousands of innocent people, destroyed the villages, towns and forests; and now a new book on the author of this policy has been released and I can't find a writer to review it. The email was presumptuous, full of embarrassing self-righteous indignation and I honestly didn't expect a reply. Guess what? Marilyn replied - and positively. She said, "I can imagine your frustration." Then went on to say that though she herself didn't want to review the book, she could on my behalf ask her colleague Mario del Pero to do it. Mario rose to the challenge and two weeks later the Mekong Review was launched and his stupendous review led the inaugural issue. Marilyn and I stayed in touch and she also played a hand in getting Patrick Deer to review Nguyen Thanh Viet's Pulitzer-Prize winning book, The Sympathizer. Patrick's review led Issue 3 of the Mekong Review. 

Though she was a complete stranger to me, I feel that I have lost someone I know. Through the acts of kindness to me, a stranger to her, she showed her true colours as a scholar and a human being. Again, as a stranger, I offer my condolences to her family, colleagues and friends.

Vale Marilyn. 

Minh Bui Jones

Editor, Mekong Review

mekongreview.com 

On 21 February 2017 at 04:14, Dan Duffy <vietnamlit@gmail.com> wrote:

Oh no. I saw a personal report on the Facebook, found no obituary, and checked here. Something I wrote about her and sent last November: 

https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=1234931796577260&id=141237769280007

On Mon, Feb 20, 2017 at 12:13 PM, Lien-Hang Nguyen <lienhangnguyen@gmail.com> wrote:

It was with great sadness that I relate the news of Marilyn Young's passing. We've lost a major scholar of the Vietnam War and a giant of a human being. She was a generous colleague, tireless mentor, and unwavering friend to many of us. I can't imagine a world without Marilyn in it - especially these days - but I hope her legacy will live on. 

I'll send more news if I have any.

-- 

Dr. Lien-Hang T. Nguyen, 

Dorothy Borg Professor in the History of the United States and East Asia

Columbia University

Dan Duffy
Editor, Viet Nam Literature Project
Chair, President, Staff. Books & Authors: Viet Nam, Inc.
108 East Hammond Street
Durham, NC 27704
USA
tel 919-530-0656
email editor@vietnamlit.org
URL www.vietnamlit.org

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