Title: 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.
Policy area: International Affairs

Summary:
Commemorates the 50th anniversary of Martin Luther King, Jr.'s sermon titled "Beyond Vietnam: A Time To Break Silence."
Encourages the U.S. government to conduct foreign policy in a manner consistent with the vision delineated in that speech.

[Congressional Bills 115th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H. Res. 246 Introduced in House (IH)]

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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. Velazquez, Ms. Barragan, 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. Gutierrez, 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 Nation'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.'';
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 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 self-defined 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 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 continues 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 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 militarism are incapable of being conquered.'': Now, 
        therefore, be it
    Resolved, That the House of Representatives--
            (1) commemorates the 50th anniversary of the ``Beyond 
        Vietnam'' sermon by Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.;
            (2) affirms that the principles enunciated in the ``Beyond 
        Vietnam'' sermon were profoundly wise at the time they were 
        given, and that they remain valid today; and
            (3) encourages the branches of our Government that conduct 
        foreign policy to do so in a manner that is consistent with the 
        vision delineated in this landmark speech.
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