Daniel S. Lucks
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- September 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780813145075
- eISBN:
- 9780813145310
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Kentucky
- DOI:
- 10.5810/kentucky/9780813145075.003.0006
- Subject:
- History, African-American History
Martin Luther King's tortuous odyssey from civil rights activist to antiwar spokesman is explored in detail in chapters 5 and 6. Chapter 5 describes how LBJ's powerful and eloquent speech on the ...
More
Martin Luther King's tortuous odyssey from civil rights activist to antiwar spokesman is explored in detail in chapters 5 and 6. Chapter 5 describes how LBJ's powerful and eloquent speech on the Voting Rights Act moved King and set the stage for his anguished response to the war. The narrative traces King's long-standing commitment to peace and his belief that the civil rights struggle was a global fight against colonialism and imperialism. The intent is to debunk the idea of King as a convenient hero. King was always a radical. A few weeks after the Watts riots, King spoke against the carnage in Vietnam and called for a cease-fire and China's acceptance into the United Nations. This provoked a fusillade of criticism from the liberal establishment. Reeling from these attacks, King confessed to his aides that he didn't have the stamina to be both a civil rights leader and an antiwar activist. Meanwhile, J. Edgar Hoover's FBI was wiretapping King's conversations, which only fed LBJ's paranoia that King was indeed a communist. For the next few years, King muted his opposition but continued to anguish over the war.Less
Martin Luther King's tortuous odyssey from civil rights activist to antiwar spokesman is explored in detail in chapters 5 and 6. Chapter 5 describes how LBJ's powerful and eloquent speech on the Voting Rights Act moved King and set the stage for his anguished response to the war. The narrative traces King's long-standing commitment to peace and his belief that the civil rights struggle was a global fight against colonialism and imperialism. The intent is to debunk the idea of King as a convenient hero. King was always a radical. A few weeks after the Watts riots, King spoke against the carnage in Vietnam and called for a cease-fire and China's acceptance into the United Nations. This provoked a fusillade of criticism from the liberal establishment. Reeling from these attacks, King confessed to his aides that he didn't have the stamina to be both a civil rights leader and an antiwar activist. Meanwhile, J. Edgar Hoover's FBI was wiretapping King's conversations, which only fed LBJ's paranoia that King was indeed a communist. For the next few years, King muted his opposition but continued to anguish over the war.
Daniel S. Lucks
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- September 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780813145075
- eISBN:
- 9780813145310
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Kentucky
- DOI:
- 10.5810/kentucky/9780813145075.003.0004
- Subject:
- History, African-American History
Chapter 3 focuses on the simultaneity of the Johnson administration's escalation of the war in Vietnam and passage of the landmark Voting Rights Act, marking the end of de jure segregation. While the ...
More
Chapter 3 focuses on the simultaneity of the Johnson administration's escalation of the war in Vietnam and passage of the landmark Voting Rights Act, marking the end of de jure segregation. While the African American public and the mainstream civil rights movement were delighted with the end of segregation, the war in Vietnam gripped SNCC and other militants from the beginning. They were struck by the administration's hypocrisy: it was willing to send troops to faraway Vietnam but reluctant to send federal marshals to protect civil rights workers in the Deep South. For a brief moment in early 1965, the civil rights and antiwar movements overlapped at the SDS march on Washington. By the end of the year, the passions unleashed by the Vietnam War were displacing civil rights as the nation's most pressing problem. As Johnson militarized the war, the riots in Watts erupted, antiwar dissent grew, and SNCC debated whether to formally take a stand against the war. The war in Vietnam diverted attention from the civil rights movement, and dissent and debate over the war aggravated preexisting generational and ideological schisms in the movement. It was a harbinger of future strife.Less
Chapter 3 focuses on the simultaneity of the Johnson administration's escalation of the war in Vietnam and passage of the landmark Voting Rights Act, marking the end of de jure segregation. While the African American public and the mainstream civil rights movement were delighted with the end of segregation, the war in Vietnam gripped SNCC and other militants from the beginning. They were struck by the administration's hypocrisy: it was willing to send troops to faraway Vietnam but reluctant to send federal marshals to protect civil rights workers in the Deep South. For a brief moment in early 1965, the civil rights and antiwar movements overlapped at the SDS march on Washington. By the end of the year, the passions unleashed by the Vietnam War were displacing civil rights as the nation's most pressing problem. As Johnson militarized the war, the riots in Watts erupted, antiwar dissent grew, and SNCC debated whether to formally take a stand against the war. The war in Vietnam diverted attention from the civil rights movement, and dissent and debate over the war aggravated preexisting generational and ideological schisms in the movement. It was a harbinger of future strife.
