Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence
4 Apr 1967
King expressed a determined opposition to war and militarism throughout his life, but remained reluctant to oppose American intervention in Vietnam in order to support President Lyndon B. Johnson, someone King felt was an honest ally to the civil rights movement. However, by 1967, King's public silence could no longer be maintained.
On April 4, 1967, King expressed his denunciation of American militarism at the Riverside Church, New York City. Titled "Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence," the speech evocatively captured King's combined philosophy of resistance to three evils - Racism, Poverty, and War.
reluctance to broach the topic of the Vietnam War brought him into conflict with more forthright and radical civil rights activists who determined that