Research Writing Exercise by Matthew Johnson

Martin Luther King Jr's "A Time to Break Silence" 

Martin Luther King Jr wrote his first anti-war speech in 1967 addressing the governments' involvement in Vietnam: "A Time to Break Silence," also known as "Beyond Vietnam."

     This speech was not to to persuade individuals from being un-patriotic and to commit draft evasion, but that the people of America need to take an official stand against it. "A time comes when silence is betrayal" is quoted by King as an endorsement to his belief that we need to take a stand against this unjust war. King address the concern that he is a rights activist and has no place in this subject by eluding to the fact that the war was symbolic for his cause; the war showed how violence is an inadequate way for the government to deal with problems such as the one presented by the Northern Forces, whom were trying to lead a communist revolution. King associates himself to the war, also, because many poor blacks were sent out to die in the war and also saying that the oppression and devastation of the Vietnamese culture is not unlike our own at home in the United Sates.

http://kingencyclopedia.stanford.edu/encyclopedia/documentsentry/doc_beyond_vietnam/