Source: King, Martin Luther Jr. Beyond Vietnam and Casualties of the War in Vietnam. New York: Clergy and Laymen Concerned About Vietnam, 1986.
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A PROPER SENSE OF PRIORITIES
February 6, 1968, Washington, D.C.
There can be no gain saying of the fact that our nation has brought the
world to an awe inspiring threshold of the future. We've built machines
that think and instruments that peer into the unfathomable ranges of
interstellar space. We have built gargantuan bridges to span the seas
and gigantic buildings to kiss the skies. And through our spaceships we
have penetrated oceanic depths and through our airplanes we have dwarfed
distance and placed time in chains. This really is a dazzling picture of
America's scientific and technological progress. But in spite of this
something basic is missing. In spite of all of our scientific and
technological progress we suffer from a kind of poverty of the spirit that
stands in glaring contrast to all of our material abundance. This is the
dilemma facing our nation and this is the dilemma to which we as clergymen
and laymen must address ourselves. Henry David Thoreau said once something
that still applies. In a very interesting dictum he talked about improved
means to an unimproved end. This is a tragedy that somewhere along the
way as a nation we have allowed the mean by which we live to outdistance
the ends for which we live. And consequently we suffer from a spiritual
and moral lag that must be redeemed if we are going to survive and maintain
a moral stance.
Now nothing convinces me more that we suffer this moral and spiritual
lag than our participation as a nation in the war in Vietnam. Our
involvement in this cruel senseless unjust war is a tragic expression
of the spiritual lag of America. And this is why we must be concerned
about it on a continuing basis. I need not go into a long discussion
about the war and its damaging effects. We all know. We know that the
war in Vietnam has destroyed the Geneva Accord. We know that the war in
Vietnam has strengthened the military-industrial complex of our nation.
We know that the war in Vietnam has strengthened the forces of reaction
in our nation. We know that the war in Vietnam has exacerbated the
tensions between the continents and between the races. And it does
not help America and her so-called image to be the most powerful, richest
nation in the world at war with one of the smallest, poorest nations in the
world that happens to be a colored nation. But not only that, the war in
Vietnam has played havoc with our domestic destinies. We would think about
the fact today that our government spends about $500,000 to kill every
Vietcong soldier. And while we spend at the same time about $53 a year
per person for everybody that's characterized as poverty stricken in the
so-called War Against Poverty which isn't even a good skirmish against
poverty. [Applause]
And we can look all around and see how we find ourselves with mixed up
priorities. President Johnson raised a question when he was giving his
State of the Union Address. He talked about the 70 million televisions
in our country. He talked about the beautiful highways and all of the
beautiful new cars, about 8 million a year, that's flowing down these
highways. He talked about our material abundance and then he said
something that needs an answer. He went on to say, and yet there is
so much restlessness in the land, he said there is so much questioning.
And I would like to say there is restlessness in the land because the
land doesn't seem to have a sense of purpose, a proper sense of policy
and a proper sense of priorities. This is the basis of the restlessness.
[Applause]
And the words of Jesus are still applicable. What does it profit a
generation, what does it profit a nation to own the whole world of means
televisions, electric lights and automobiles and lose in the end the soul.
The words of Jesus are still true in another sense. Man can not live by the
bread of colored televisions alone but by every word, the word of justice,
the word of love, the word of truth, every word that procedeth out of the
mouth of God. And the problem is that all too many people in power are
trying to get America to live on the wrong thing. And this is why we are
moving in the wrong direction. This war is playing havoc with our domestic
destinies for all of these reasons. We are fighting two wars today. One
is the unjust war in Vietnam but the fact is we aren't winning that war
there because it is clearly an unwinnable war. [Applause]
And certainly we aren't winning the other war that we are supposed to be
in, namely the war against poverty. And we aren't winning that war because
of the attempt to win an unjust war 8,000 miles away from home and because
there are all too many people who are not willing to grapple with the
problems of the poor. There are some wars in which I feel that people
ought to be conscientious objectors and if I had to make the decision I
would be a conscientious objector to the war in Vietnam. But there are
other wars in which we can not be conscientious objectors and all too
many people are trying to be conscientious objectors in the war against
poverty. Everybody ought to be involved in that. [Applause]
I said some time ago, the press jumped on me about it, and I want to say it
today one more time. [Applause] And I'm very sad to say it. We live in a
nation that is the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today.
[Applause] And any nation that spends almost $80 billion of its annual
budget for defense channeled through the Pentagon and hands out a pittance
here and there for social uplift is moving towards its own spiritual doom.
And I say it over and over again that something must be changed. We've
played havoc with the destiny of the world and we've brought the whole
world closer to a nuclear confrontation. Somewhere we must make it clear
that we are concerned about the survival of the world in a day when
Sputniks and Explorers and Geminis are dashing through outer space and
guided ballistic missiles are carving highways of death through the
stratosphere. No nation can ultimately win a war. It is no longer a choice
between violence and non-violence, it is either non-violence or non-existence.
And the alternative to disarmament.... [Applause]
The alternative to disarmament, the alternative to a greater suspension of
nuclear tests, the alternative to strengthening the United Nations and
thereby disarming the whole world may well be a civilization plunged
into the abyss of annihilation and our earthly habitat will be transformed
into an inferno that even the mind of Dante could not envision. We've got
to see that, and work diligently and passionately for peace. And you know
in the freedom movement we have a song that we sing based on the Negro
spiritual, and I hope we will continue to sing that song and sing it in
the peace movement. Somehow we've got to say 'I ain't going to let nobody
turn me around.' [Applause]
And yes we aren't going to let anything, or anybody turn us around in
this just cause and in this struggle for peace. We aren't going to let
indictments turn us around, we aren't going to let this attempt to crush
dissent turn us around, we aren't going to let the attempt of those who
are saying or trying to identify dissent with disloyalty. We aren't going to
allow that turn us around. And I have come to the point....[Applause] And I
have come to the point of saying that we aren't going to let jail houses turn
us around if its necessary. [Applause]
If this war in Vietnam isn't ended we are going to be in the position of a
nation of having some of the finest young men and adults in this nation in
jail. A poll was taken just a few weeks ago at Harvard University, one of
the great universities of the world, 24% of the students polled said that
they would go to jail or leave the country and go to Canada somewhere
before they would serve in the war in Vietnam. Then 96% of those polled
said they opposed the Administration's policy in Vietnam. This is happening
all over, young men finding this war objectionable and abominable are rising
up, saying, 'We can not in all good conscience serve in it.' And we as
clergymen, we as ministers, and rabbis, and priests must forever stand
with young men in their moments of conscience. We were ordained to do that.
[Applause]
Now I'm about through. I told Ralph Abernathy that I was going to talk about
five minutes. And I said, "But Ralph, the temptation is, when you get before
a big audience like that and you get before preachers you end up preaching a
little bit." [Laughter] But in all seriousness I've got to get out to attend
the board meeting of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference which
begins at 2:00 here in Washington. And I want to say one other thing
before I go. I'm still convinced that the struggle for peace and the
struggle for justice or the struggle for civil rights, we call it in
America, can be tied together. These two issues....[Applause] They are
tied together in many many ways. And I feel the people who are working for
civil rights should be working for peace and I feel that those who are
working for peace should be working for civil rights and justice.
Now we have a grave problem in our country. There is an economic
depression alive right now. It happens to be poor people involved
and therefore it is not called a depression. When poor people and
Negroes are way down in a depression situation economically, we call
it a social ill, but when white people get massively unemployed we
call it a depression. [Laughter - Applause]
And the Negro is facing a depression. Statistics would reveal that
the unemployment rate in the Negro community is about 8.4%. What they
don't reveal is the fact is that their statistics are compiled on the
basis of people who go to an employment office to find a job or who
formerly were in the labor market. They don't deal with what we call
the discouraged. People who've given up, people who've had so many
doors closed in their faces that they feel defeated, they've lost
motivation, they've come to feel that life is a long and desolate
corridor with no exit sign, and so they don't go out to look for a job.
Now if you add these people the unemployment rate in the adult black
community is probably 16% or 17%. And when you get to the Negro youth,
the unemployment is probably, in some cities at least it's between 30%
and sometimes it goes up as high as 40%. Now this is a depression.
More staggering than the depression of the 30's.
Not only is the problem unemployment, there is another problem that is
even greater and that is underemployment. Most of the people who are poor
in our country are working everyday and that's not said enough. They work
in our hotels, they clean up our rooms when we go to our hotels across the
country for our meetings. They work in our hospitals, they work in our
homes, most of them are domestic workers working everyday working sometimes
60 hours a week. They're working full time jobs getting part time income.
These are problems that are very real. It's developed an underclass in our
nation and unless that underclass is made a working class we're going to
continue to have problems. Now the bitterness is very deep as a result
of these problems, it's broad, it's extensive. And we in the Southern
Christian Leadership Conference feel that we can't stand idly by while
these problems continue to grow and not take a stand against them. We feel
that it is time now to bring a Selma-type or Birmingham-type movement to
bear on the economic problems confronting the poor people of our nation.
And when I say poor people I'm not only talking about black people, I'm
aware of the fact that there are a poor people on a large scale in the
Puerto Rican community, I'm talking about the Mexican-American community,
I'm talking about the Indian community, I'm talking about the Appalachian
white community, I'm talking about poor people's power. That is what is
needed. [Applause]
Now time will not permit me to go into any details on this. And I am
only saying it, I'm only mentioning this to say that we need your
support. Now we, as we seek, to bring to bear the power of non-violent
direct action on the nation. The fact is that the people of the nation
want to do the very things that we are going to be demanding when we come
to Washington. A Harris poll reveals, two months ago that 68% of American
people feel that there should be in existence now a program that would make
it possible for everybody who wants to work to have a job. Whether it's a
WPA type program or of a kind. It went on to reveal that 64% of the
American people feel that the slums should be eradicated. And these
communities rebuilt by the people who live in them and that would
provide a kind of mass employment. And not only do we see it in the
general population, there's the group call Urban Coalition, made up of
most of the mayors of our country. Mayors of the big cities and some of
the outstanding businessmen, they have asked for these very same things.
The periodical, Newsweek magazine, devoted a whole edition the other day
calling for these same things. And I could go right down the line.
Three Presidential Commissions have called for. The Mission on Technology
Automation and Economic Progress, The White House Conference on Civil Rights,
and yet nothing has happened. And I've just come to a conclusion, that our
country really doesn't move on these issues. Until a movement is mobilized
to so dramatize and call attention to it that the Congress can not elude the
demands. Now we see the riots developing in the country. And I want to say
today, and it's easy to point out and say this person started a riot or this
person created the atmosphere for riots. I figured it's time to say now that
it is the Congress of the United States of America that's causing riots in
our country. [Applause]
And so I say we need your support and we expect it as we move on into this
area and I want to thank you for the support that so many of you have
continually given. As we were marching today, some 5,000 strong, I
thought about Selma because I could look around and see so many who
have marched with us in Selma, and from Selma to Montgomery. And we are
still marching and we are still moving. And I give you my commitment
today that I plan to continue. Someone said to me not long ago, it was a
member of the press, 'Dr. King, since you face so many criticisms and since
you are going to hurt the budget of your organization, don't you feel that
you should kind of change and fall in line with the Administration's policy.
Aren't you hurting the civil rights movement and people who once respected
you may lose respect for you because you're involved in this controversial
issue in taking the stand against the war.' And I had to look with a deep
understanding of why he raised the question and with no bitterness in my
heart and say to that man, "I'm sorry sir, but you don't know me. I'm
not a consensus leader. [Laughter - Applause] I don't determine what
is right and wrong by looking at the budget of the Southern Christian
Leadership Conference or by taking....[Applause] Nor do I determine
what is right and wrong by taking a Gallup poll of the majority
opinion." [Applause] Ultimately a genuine leader is not a searcher
of consensus but a molder of consensus. [Applause] On some positions
cowardice asks the question, is it safe? Expediency asks the question,
is it politic? Vanity asks the question, is it popular? But conscience
asks the question, is it right? And there comes a time when one must
take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular but he
must take it because conscience tells him it is right. [Applause]
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