The sixties were a time of great upheaval in the Unites States. Externally, the country was embroiled in an unpopular war in Vietnam and internally, rejection of the ‘establishment’ typified by the ‘Counter-culture movement’ and the Black Civil rights movement was gaining momentum. The Vietnam War was deeply opposed by African American leaders for differing reasons. This essay attempts to compare and contrast the views and perceptions of two African American leaders of the Sixties, Stokely Carmichael and Dr. Martin Luther King based on their speeches delivered at Berkeley, 1966 and New York City, 1967 respectively.
Stokely Carmichael was a firebrand leader of the Black power group SNCC, whose extreme radical thoughts on racism were termed too militant by the more moderate Black civil right activists. Stokely stated that “The war in Vietnam is illegal and immoral” (1966, p.6). His solution to stop the war was open defiance of the existing government laws. According to Stokely “This country will only stop the war in Vietnam when the young men who are made to fight it begin to say, “Hell, no, we aren’t going” (1966, p.7). Dr Martin Luther King, on the other hand, while agreeing that the war was immoral, had other reasons for opposing it. According to King, the war was diverting the Poverty program funds set up to help the poor of America. He rejected the war on grounds that the US was sending black men to fight a war “to guarantee liberties in Southeast Asia which they had not found in Southwest Georgia and East Harlem” ( King, 1967, p.3). This view is echoed by Stokely in stating that “any time a black man leaves the country where he can’t vote to supposedly deliver the vote to somebody else, he’s a black mercenary”(1966. p.7). King also attributes the American support to the French for the re-conquest of Indo-China as another reason why he opposed the war as it militates against American values of democratic rights for everybody. King also accused the US government of supporting a vicious dictator Diem to run Vietnam, which was rightfully opposed by the people of Vietnam who do not have the support of China but were indigenous communists. With this, King honestly believes that the Vietcong was a revolutionary government seeking self-determination. While the thrust of Stokely’s speech is on Black rights with Vietnam as one of the issues, King’s entire speech is predicated on the opposition to the Vietnam War and his reasons for doing so.
While some of the reasons of both the leaders are morally valid, some perceptions show gaps in their information as to why America went to war. The chief reason why the US intervened in Vietnam was to prevent the spread of Communism throughout Southeast Asia. The fear was that Southeast Asian countries would fall like a stack of Dominoes to communist ideology if Vietnam was allowed to become a communist state. This ‘Domino theory’ was the most important reason for America to go to war. What Stokely and King did not know was that the US intelligence had positive documented information of massive covert Soviet support to the Viet Cong to carry out the revolution. The third important cause was the impending defeat of the South Vietnamese forces, a US ally which could not be allowed. Thus the dictates of the defined global strategy of Containment of the Soviets was the prime mover for US involvement in the Vietnam War, a fact not sufficiently underscored by both the African American leaders who continued to look through the prism of morality and Human Rights.
Works Cited
Carmichael, Stokely. 1966. “Black Power”. Transcription by Eidenmuller, Michael E. 2007. Web.
King Martin Luther. 1967. “To Atone for our Sins and Errors in Vietnam”. 2008. Web.