IV 

115TH CONGRESS 

1ST SESSION H. RES. 246 

Commemorating the 50th anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s ‘‘Beyond Vietnam: A Time To Break Silence’’ sermon condemning the Vietnam War and calling for a true revolution of values in the United 

States. 

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

APRIL 4, 2017 

Mr. CONYERS (for himself, Mr. LEWIS of Georgia, Ms. NORTON, Ms. EDDIE

BERNICE JOHNSON of Texas, Mr. EVANS, Mr. RICHMOND, Ms. 

PLASKETT, Mr. ESPAILLAT, Mr. MCGOVERN, Ms. VELA ́ZQUEZ, Ms. 

BARRAGA ́N, Ms. LEE, Mr. RUSH, Ms. BASS, Ms. MOORE, Ms. SEWELL

of Alabama, Mr. CUMMINGS, Ms. JAYAPAL, Mr. DANNY K. DAVIS of Illinois, Ms. CLARKE of New York, Mr. JOHNSON of Georgia, Mr. COHEN, 

Mr. GUTIE ́RREZ, Mr. CLAY, Mrs. LAWRENCE, Mr. DAVID SCOTT of Georgia, Mr. JEFFRIES, Mr. COURTNEY, Ms. DELAURO, Mrs. BEATTY, Mr. 

CARSON of Indiana, Mrs. NAPOLITANO, Mr. GRIJALVA, Mr. NADLER, Ms. 

WILSON of Florida, Mr. MCEACHIN, Mrs. DINGELL, Mrs. DEMINGS, Mr. 

CLEAVER, Ms. JACKSON LEE, Ms. MAXINE WATERS of California, Mr. 

SERRANO, Mrs. WATSON COLEMAN, Mr. RASKIN, Ms. FUDGE, Mr. ELLISON, Ms. ADAMS, Mr. PAYNE, Mr. MEEKS, Mr. PALLONE, Mr. LAWSON

of Florida, and Ms. KELLY of Illinois) submitted the following resolution; 

which was referred to the Committee on Foreign Affairs 

RESOLUTION 

Commemorating the 50th anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther 

King, Jr.’s ‘‘Beyond Vietnam: A Time To Break Silence’’ 

sermon condemning the Vietnam War and calling for 

a true revolution of values in the United States. 

Whereas, on April 4, 1967, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., civil 

rights icon and one of the greatest leaders in our NaVerDate Sep 11 2014 21:08 Apr 05, 2017 Jkt 069200 PO 00000 Frm 00001 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6300 E:\BILLS\HR246.IH HR246

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tion’s history, issued his ‘‘Beyond Vietnam: A Time To 

Break Silence’’ sermon to an overflow crowd at the Riverside Church in New York City regarding the participation of the United States in the War in Vietnam and the 

consequences of the war on the movement for civil rights 

and for our Nation as a whole; 

Whereas in the sermon, Dr. King presented a powerful case 

for an end to the war in Vietnam, stating ‘‘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.’’; 

Whereas Dr. King recognized the challenges inherent in 

speaking out against our own Nation’s foreign policy, 

stating that ‘‘Even when pressed by the demands of inner 

truth, men do not easily assume the task of opposing 

their government’s policy, especially in time of war. Nor 

does the human spirit move without great difficulty 

against all the apathy of conformist thought within one’s 

own bosom and in the surrounding world. Moreover, 

when the issues at hand seem as perplexing as they often 

do in the case of this dreadful conflict, we are always on 

the verge of being mesmerized by uncertainty. But we 

must move on. Some of us who have already begun to 

break the silence of the night have found that the calling 

to speak is often a vocation of agony, but we must 

speak.’’; 


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Whereas Dr. King addressed critics who lambasted him for 

addressing an issue outside of the strictly construed 

realm of civil rights for African-Americans, declaring that 

‘‘the path from Dexter Avenue Baptist Church—the 

church in Montgomery, Alabama, where I began my pastorate—leads clearly to this sanctuary tonight. There is 

at the outset a very obvious and almost facile connection 

between the war in Vietnam and the struggle I and others have been waging in America. A few years ago there 

was a shining moment in that struggle. It seemed as if 

there was a real promise of hope for the poor, both black 

and white, through the poverty program. There were experiments, hopes, new beginnings. Then came the buildup 

in Vietnam, and I watched this program broken and eviscerated as if it were some idle political plaything on a society gone mad on war. And 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.’’; 

Whereas King was subsequently attacked for giving this sermon by 168 major newspapers including the New York 

Times and Washington Post; 

Whereas Dr. King understood that his commitment to his religion required him to speak out on behalf of peace and 

understanding between peoples and nations, stating ‘‘To 

me, the relationship of this ministry to the making of 

peace is so obvious that I sometimes marvel at those who 

ask me why I am speaking against the war. Could it be 

that they do not know that the Good News was meant 


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for all men—for communist and capitalist, for their children and ours, for black and for white, for revolutionary 

and conservative? Have they forgotten that my ministry 

is in obedience to the one who loved his enemies so fully 

that he died for them? Finally, as I try to explain for you 

and for myself the road that leads from Montgomery to 

this place, I would have offered all that was most valid 

if I simply said that I must be true to my conviction that 

I share with all men the calling to be a son of the living 

God. Beyond the calling of race or nation or creed is this 

vocation of sonship and brotherhood. Because I believe 

that the Father is deeply concerned, especially for His 

suffering and helpless and outcast children, I come tonight to speak for them. This I believe to be the privilege 

and the burden of all of us who deem ourselves bound by 

allegiances and loyalties which are broader and deeper 

than nationalism and which go beyond our nation’s selfdefined goals and positions. We are called to speak for 

the weak, for the voiceless, for the victims of our nation, 

for those it calls ‘enemy’ for no document from human 

hands can make these humans any less our brothers,’’; 

Whereas Dr. King noted the challenge of telling aggrieved 

Americans that violence would not solve their problems 

while their country was using violence to address its 

problems abroad, explaining that ‘‘As I have walked [in 

the ghettos of the North over the last three years] among 

the desperate, rejected, and angry young men, I have told 

them that Molotov cocktails and rifles would not solve 

their problems. I have tried to offer them my deepest 

compassion while maintaining my conviction that social 

change comes most meaningfully through nonviolent action. But they asked, and rightly so, ‘What about Vietnam?’ They asked if our own nation wasn’t using massive 


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doses of violence to solve its problems, to bring about the 

changes it wanted. Their questions hit home, and I knew 

that I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed in the ghettos without having first 

spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the 

world today: my own government. For the sake of those 

boys, for the sake of this government, for the sake of the 

hundreds of thousands trembling under our violence, I 

cannot be silent.’’; 

Whereas such an observation remains particularly relevant 

today, as people in cities nationwide are rising up in protest against injustices such as police brutality and are 

similarly urged to air their grievances peacefully; 

Whereas Dr. King made a powerful call for a ‘‘true revolution 

in values,’’ stating that such a revolution ‘‘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. [...] America, the 

richest and most powerful nation in the world, can well 

lead the way in this revolution of values. There is nothing 

except a tragic death wish to prevent us from reordering 

our priorities so that the pursuit of peace will take precedence over the pursuit of war. There is nothing to keep 

us from molding a recalcitrant status quo with bruised 

hands until we have fashioned it into a brotherhood.’’; 

Whereas Dr. King warned of prioritizing war spending of 

that for social welfare, declaring that ‘‘A nation that conVerDate Sep 11 2014 00:41 Apr 05, 2017 Jkt 069200 PO 00000 Frm 00005 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6300 E:\BILLS\HR246.IH HR246

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tinues year after year to spend more money on military 

defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching 

spiritual death.’’; 

Whereas this warning is particularly applicable today, given 

recent proposals for dramatic increases in military spending, on top of a budget that is already far greater than 

that of any other nation on earth, combined with sharp 

reductions in social welfare programs; 

Whereas Dr. King clarified that his critique extended beyond 

the Vietnam War, stating that ‘‘The war in Vietnam is 

but a symptom of a far deeper malady within the American spirit, and if we ignore this sobering reality, we will 

find ourselves organizing ‘clergy and laymen concerned’ 

committees for the next generation. They will be concerned about Guatemala and Peru. They will be concerned about Thailand and Cambodia. They will be concerned about Mozambique and South Africa. We will be 

marching for these and a dozen other names and attending rallies without end unless there is a significant and 

profound change in American life and policy. So such 

thoughts take us beyond Vietnam, but not beyond our 

calling as sons of the living God.’’; 

Whereas these words have proven to be prophetic, as exemplified by ongoing United States involvement in conflicts 

such as Afghanistan, Iraq, among many other simmering 

conflicts where our Nation has military involvement, 

many of which continue to incur a great cost, both in 

terms of our Nation’s financial resources as well as a 

human toll for both our service members and the civilian 

population; and 

Whereas Dr. King called for an enlightened future for our society, stating that ‘‘Our only hope today lies in our ability 


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to recapture the revolutionary spirit and go out into a 

sometimes hostile world declaring eternal hostility to poverty, racism, and militarism. With this powerful commitment we shall boldly challenge the status quo and unjust 

mores, and thereby speed the day when ‘every valley shall 

be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made 

low, the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough 

places plain.’ Now let us begin. Now let us rededicate 

ourselves to the long and bitter, but beautiful, struggle 

for a new world. This is the calling of the sons of God, 

and our brothers wait eagerly for our response. Shall we 

say the odds are too great? Shall we tell them the struggle is too hard? Will our message be that the forces of 

American life militate against their arrival as full men, 

and we send our deepest regrets? Or will there be another 

message—of longing, of hope, of solidarity with their 

yearnings, of commitment to their cause, whatever the 

cost? The choice is ours, and though we might prefer it 

otherwise, we must choose in this crucial moment of 

human history. And if we will only make the right choice, 

we will be able to transform this pending cosmic elegy 

into a creative psalm of peace. If we will make the right 

choice, we will be able to transform the jangling discords 

of our world into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. 

If we will but make the right choice, we will be able to 

speed up the day, all over America and all over the world, 

when justice will roll down like waters, and righteousness 

like a mighty stream. 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, extreme materialism, and 


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militarism are incapable of being conquered.’’: Now, 

therefore, be it 

1 Resolved, That the House of Representatives— 

2 (1) commemorates the 50th anniversary of the 

3 ‘‘Beyond Vietnam’’ sermon by Reverend Dr. Martin 

4 Luther King, Jr.; 

5 (2) affirms that the principles enunciated in the 

6 ‘‘Beyond Vietnam’’ sermon were profoundly wise at 

7 the time they were given, and that they remain valid 

8 today; and 

9 (3) encourages the branches of our Government 

10 that conduct foreign policy to do so in a manner 

11 that is consistent with the vision delineated in this 

12 landmark speech. 

Æ 


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