"Dr. King's Disservice to His Cause." (April 21, 1967).
Life, 62(16), 4.
After Martin Luther King's April 4, 1967 speech, given at the Riverside
Church in New York City, against the war in Vietnam, many in the press
were quick to condemn King's position. Life magazine called the speech
a "demagogic slander that sounded like a script for Radio Hanoi." The
editorial continues, "Dr. King, a Nobel Prize winner justly honored
for his philosophy of nonviolence, could be expected to have strong
personal reservations about our involvement in Vietnam. But he goes
beyond his personal right to dissent when he connects progress in
civil rights here with a proposal that amounts to abject surrender
in Vietnam -- and suggests that youths should become conscientious
objectors rather than serve." The editorial board of Life magazine
also suggested that if the civil rights movement was stalling, that
"Dr. King and his tactics," not just the monetary drain the Vietnam
war was causing, were to blame.
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