Martin Luther King Vietnam Rhetorical Analysis

In a speech Rev. Martian Luther King Jr. gave to the Riverside Church in New York City, King conveyed his beliefs on the horrific atrocities currently present in the Vietnam War. King began by stating that no longer Vietnam was a oversea issues, "Vietnam [had to be brought] into the field of my moral vision". Likewise, King stated the issues at home such as the overwhelming majority of the nation's poor were fighting in the Vietnam War. In King's mindset, a nation that held it self on the acclaim that all men are created equal, was in fact not equal. King uses a variety of persuasive elements including, but not limited to: concrete examples and analysis, a robust tone, and powerful rhetoric. While King was only one voice out of many of those who were on both sides of the war, King still managed to change others views about politics through the usage of his persuasive elements. In all, King posses a natural eloquence that allows him to spread his message far and wide with the hopes that America will never forget the testatrices that took place at home and oversea during the Vietnam War.

In April 1971 John Kerry gave his famous statement before the Senate of Foreign Relations Committee, “Vietnam Veterans Against the War”. He presented this speech as a plea from the veterans across the country to the government of the United States to bring an end to the war in Vietnam. Kerry’s speech was used to enlighten the committee about the true horrors going on in Vietnam and was effective in doing so. He used various examples of what had happened and what was still occurring. Kerry also explained the tragic effect of the many who did return home from the war. By doing so he was able to bring attention to the truth about the Vietnam War which so many americans had ignored.

“Beyond Vietnam-A Time to Break Silence” is an article written by Martin Luther King Jr himself. King is effectively able to convey his point about his topic by using rhetorical devices such as logos, ethos, pathos.

Martin Luther King was firmly against the war in Vietnam. He successfully and eloquently pointed out many of the injustices and hypocrisies of the war. First the war disproportionately affects the poor by drawing away government resources that would otherwise benefit the poor. Second, the draft pulled mainly from poor communities as those more affluent could avoid the draft through college deferments or other means. As a result, poor communities suffer more as young men die. “We were taking the black young men who had been crippled by our society and sending them eight thousand miles away to guarantee liberties in Southeast Asia which they had not found in southwest Georgia and East Harlem”. (MLK- A Time to Break Silence Par 5) Third, that the American use of violence to solve its problems was both immoral and also destined to fail and incompatible with American values of self determination. Fourth, by supporting anti-communist despots we undermine our message of peace and prosperity. “...as we increased our troop commitments in support of governments which were singularly corrupt, inept, and without popular support. All the while the people read our leaflets and received the regular promises of peace and democracy and land reform. Now they languish under our bombs and

Martin Luther King a man who was a civil rights activist that was tired of America’s antics during the Vietnam War, so he decided to speak against their involvement. The U.S’s involvement to ending communism has led to negative impacts on the lives of the Vietnamese people. Martin Luther King Jr. has many reasons to why he wants the United States to resolve its problem with Vietnam through peaceful acts such as ending all bombing and removing all troops from Vietnam.

One of the main issues at that time was poverty and racial injustice. In 1976, Martin Luther King stated that “We were taking the black young men who had been crippled by our society and sending them eight thousand miles away to guarantee liberties in Southeast Asia which they had not found in southwest Georgia and East Harlem. “ Meaning that black troops were sent to fight with the white troops for liberty and justice in another country miles and miles away when they haven’t even gotten that in their own country. Another speech that was by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in April 4 1967, addressed the fact that the government had promised hope for the black and white, through a poverty program and people actually thought they were going to start seeing change, until the Vietnam war popped up, breaking down the program as well as the hopes and dreams of the people. As Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. also said “So I was increasingly compelled to see the war as an enemy of the poor and to attack it as such….”

Dr. King includes a brief, but poignant history of the war in Vietnam which is important because he needs to prove that he knows and understands the politics of the situation. He successfully proves that The

We have all heard Martin Luther King’s famous speech, I have a Dream. His main goal was to convince everyone across the country to comprehend racial equality and to reinforce a solution for those individuals already engaged in the Civil Rights movement. You could say his speech was part of what made the movement successful. By him taking a stand, much attention was put into the problems that were going on. He was and still is viewed as an important leader who was an activist in the Civil Rights Movement. Here we will basically dissect parts of his speech and define the points he was making and trying to make. Throughout the paper, you will see how Dr. King uses Ethos, Pathos, and Logos to show his audience and make them feel what went on.

In relation to pathos, the speech at some point triggers emotions as he remembers the events of the First World War from songs. Soldiers stayed in soggy areas, they were weary from walking from dust till dawn, the roads were poor and they were covered in mud and sometimes were freezing from the constant rains and wind. Yet still, they died while not complaining and simply upholding the ethical principles: Duty, Honor, Country. It was about seeking the truth and the light for them and they traded this with their tears, sweat and blood.

In the speech “ Beyond Vietnam- A Time to Break Silence”, Dr. King speaks out on the issues brought upon by the Vietnam War and how it has a negative impact on African Americans. He displays a frustrated and irritated tone to shed light on this problem in order to entice anger within the African American community of Harlem and call them to fight against social injustice and fight for their civil rights.

Why was Martin Luther King so adamantly against the War in Vietnam? How does he connect the plight of African-Americans to people living in colonized countries such as Vietnam? These were the questions I was given and will be answered in this essay, but before I can answer them we must first establish what kind of person Martin Luther King Jr. was and how he fought for the lives and equality for many African-Americans. Martin Luther King Jr. was a brilliant civil rights leader, he was very well educated and cared much about fighting for equality between Caucasians and African-Americans. He was a peaceful fighter did not believe in resorting to violence to get his point across.

Widely known for his work in the Civil Rights Movement, Martin Luther King Jr eventually also gained momentum in the anti-war movement against the war in Vietnam. Through his use of imagery, diction, and parallel structure, Martin Luther King Jr associates the war in Vietnam with injustice in his famous speech, "Beyond Vietnam - A Time to Break Silence." Martin Luther King Jr. applies imagery throughout his speech in order to illustrate the horrors of the war to arouse anger at its atrocities and injustice. For instance, he does when he depicts the, "Negro and white boys on TV screens as they kill and die together for a nation that has been unable to seat them together in the same schools. " The image of death, as powerful as it is, becomes amplified when Martin Luther King associates the injustices of segregation with the Vietnam war.

Martin Luther King Jr. uses seven arguments to state his opposition to the Vietnam War. One argument King makes is how African Americans fight for the Vietnamese’s liberties when African Americans are not offered the same liberties back in America. King is left disappointed and shocked when he realizes the United States is sending African Americans to Southeast Asia to guarantee the Vietnamese’s freedom when in America they are not even acknowledged as human beings. King draws up the conclusion that he cannot be silent, instead, he will speak up against the American government to protest the injustice African Americans are facing. The American government is taking young African American men who faced discrimination in his own country leaves

In 1967, in his book Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community? Martin Luther King "criticized Johnson's War on Poverty for being too piecemeal," saying that programs created under the "war on poverty" such as "housing programs, job training and family counseling" all had "a fatal disadvantage [because] the programs have never proceeded on a coordinated basis...[and noted that] at no time has a total, coordinated and fully adequate program been conceived." In his speech on April 4, 1967 at Riverside Church in New City, King connected the war in Vietnam with the "war on poverty": "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.

The speech beyond Vietnam was delivered by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., in 1967. The delivery in his message during his speech, provides different ways to convince his information of the war to his listeners and followers. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr’s speech is conveying a message to America that the war is far out of our league. His speech reveals the challenges and change facing America. Accepting end of the war with the same struggle, Africans Americans have faced the same battle as the Vietnamese people. Unlike most wars, Vietnam war is a failure due to the hatred of poor, color, and difference of others. Dr. King’s Speech will relate to future generations down the line.