Gabrielle
Kissi
Professor
Young
ENGL
1101
22
March 2015
Break The Silence
“We must speak with all the humility that
is appropriate to our limited vision, but we must speak” (King 1). Martin
Luther King Jr. is encouraging people of America to speak about their feelings
about the Vietnam War, a war that was causing controversy. In the two readings “The
Meaning of July Fourth for the Negro” and in “Beyond Vietnam: A Time
to Break Silence,” the effect of war upon society is discussed. “The Meaning of July
Fourth for the Negro” is a speech by Frederick Douglass, who discusses why the
Negro nation does not feel the need to celebrate the Fourth of July since this
celebration of having won the Revolutionary War was meant for soldiers and
their families but not the not for the black community. In the Martin Luther
King Jr. speech, “Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence,” King
expresses seven reasons why the Vietnam War is not an ethical idea and how it
is hurting America. He also discusses solutions that can end the war. These two
speeches symbolize an appropriate time to break the silence because the
institutions of family and religion were being broken, and Americans were not pleased
or felt comfortable with their life and environment.
During the Vietnam War Vietnamese families
were being massacred, and King decided to get involved and break the silence
about this immorality. King was a Civil Rights leader who was extremely influential in the implementation of political
freedom and the growth of personal civil
liberties and rights. He
demonstrated peacefully and through nonviolent movements and felt it was his
responsibility to speak out against the war. King broke the silence with his
speech by discussing the issues concerning the war. King commented, “I have
moved to break the betrayal of my own silences and to speak from the burnings
of my own heart, as I have called for radical departures from the destruction
of Vietnam.” Because of his position in leadership, he had to stand by his
commitment to changing the world into a better, peaceful, and nonviolent place.
As a Civil Rights leader, King had the urge as well as the power to speak out
on the wrongfulness of America entering into a war that brought destruction to
Vietnam and America alike.
Hence, it is time to break the silence
when not only a country but also its religion is being crushed and destroyed.
In the speech, King mentions the role of the Americans when saying, “We have
cooperated in the crushing -- in the crushing of the nation's only
non-Communist revolutionary political force, the unified Buddhist Church” (King
1). Silence had to be broken because pain and violence was not what King
believed in. The crushing of a religion is not the morally right and should not
be done to one’s nation. Civilized humans know what is morally wrong and what
is right and destroying a religion in the name of war does not make it morally
right.
Not only is it important to speak out against immorality
but also against inequality, which is what Douglass addressed in his speech.
African Americans were not content within their American community since they
felt excluded from their own country. Douglass became a representative on behalf
of the colored community and in his speech he states, “The sunlight that brought light and healing to
you, has brought stripes and death to me” (Douglass 1). The
colored mourned while the whites rejoiced and celebrated the Fourth of July. Yet,
blacks did not have the chance to be happy and gain pride for America because
they were still treated unequally and enslaved by their white countrymen.
Blacks also mourned for all the men that died fighting alongside white Americans
for independence yet didn’t gain any respect from their country.
Since
so many African Americans had not gained their country’s respect but were
enslaved, anger arose and sparked Douglass to break his silence. Although it is
not best for an individual to speak their mind when they are angry, it is best
to get one’s thoughts and feelings written down, so that when one is ready to
speak he or she will at the appropriate time. Douglass’s speech was extremely
dark and enraged at America and how it has treated African-Americans during
slavery, “It is wrong to make men brutes, to rob them of
their liberty, to work them without wages, to keep them ignorant of their
relations to their fellow men, to beat them with sticks, to flay their flesh
with the lash, to load their limbs with irons” (Douglass 3). As a
representative of colored people and as their key to justice and liberty,
Douglass believes that enough is enough. Today, African-Americans are still
treated unfairly. For instance, in Orlando a police officer, William Escobar,
illegally arrested and beat down an African- American military veteran. The
veteran could not defend himself because he was handcuffed and down on the
ground. Just like the veteran, slaves were also defenseless and could not
resist the treatment they were being faced with.
Ultimately,
silence should be broken when people do not feel accepted and comfortable in
their own country. Due to Frederick Douglass’ beliefs, America is a world
filled with hypocrisy, impiety and deception. The independence that soldiers of
America fought for were, in actuality, not for all men because all men where
not treated equally after the Revolutionary War. Whites still treated American
Americans harshly. America is not better than any other nation yet we have
millions of guilty and shameful moments especially during war. The American
slave could not find him-/herself boasting up a country whereby he/she was
treated horrible by, “The gross of injustice and cruelty to which he is the
constant victim. To him, your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty; your
sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless” (Douglass 4). To the American
slave the Fourth of July is a “mere bombast and fraud”(Douglass 4). The
festival for the American people is a false image of who and what they truly stand
for. Usually celebrations are celebrated because great things happened; yet
Douglass called this festival a sham because it was America being fraudulent to
African-Americans by not allowing and giving them the independence they desire.
Works Cited
King, Martin Luther Jr. “Beyond Vietnam: A Time of Silence.” Clergy and Laymen
Concerned About Vietnam. Riverside Church: New
York City. 4 April 1967.
Keynote
Address.
"The Meaning of July Fourth for the Negro." PBS.
PBS, Feb.-Mar. 2015. Web. 27 Feb.
2015.
