Selma to Saigon: The Civil Rights Movement and the Vietnam War

6. The Second Coming of Martin Luther King Jr., 1966-1968

169 6 the Second Coming of martin luther King Jr., 1966–1968 In a real sense, the Great Society has been shot down on the battlefields of Vietnam. —martin luther King Jr. the war in asia had as one of its unintended consequences the dismembering of the civil rights alliance and the destruction of the consensus for racial reform. as the United States disgorged its firepower into Vietnam and the ghettos burst into flames, the hopes of the blacks went up in smoke, and King’s dream turned into ash. —Harvard Sitkoff By 1966, King’s prayers had not been answered, and the military escalation in Vietnam continued unabated. lBJ was consumed by the war, and civil rights leaders discerned a diminution in his passion for civil rights.1 Vietnam would cast its shadow on american life well into the 1970s and beyond. Writing in the New York Review of Books in october 1966, journalist Ronald Steel described Washington as “a city obsessed by Vietnam.” according to Steel, “it eats, sleeps, and particularly drinks this war. there is virtually no other discussion worthy of the name, and no social gathering or private discussion that does not inevitably gravitate toward the war.” one outspoken journalist griped to Steel, “Were it not for this Vietnam thing, i’d be able to write about the real crises—about poverty, and civil rights, and the cities.”2 Far from the georgetown salons, King was engrossed in his Chicago campaign and the Black Power controversy, and he avoided the mushrooming antiwar rallies. He tried to eschew discus- 170 Selma to Saigon sion of the war, but like the rest of the country, he could not escape the vortex of Vietnam. like everything else, its whirling currents would envelop King and the civil rights movement. By 1966, King’s inner war over Vietnam was reflected in the larger civil war within the American body politic. the war had come home. as previously mentioned, 1966 was barely a week old when SnCC’s denunciation of the war and the controversy over the seating of Julian Bond in the Georgia house created a firestorm.3 the hysteria unleashed when Bond refused to repudiate SnCC’s support of draft resistance seemed to corroborate the wisdom of keeping a low profile on Vietnam. There was ample justification for caution. First, the war was still popular among King’s northern liberal donors, and now that he had launched his first campaign against the racist practices embedded in the North, financial contributions were dwindling.4 Second, lBJ’s recent extension of the Christmastime bombing halt against north Vietnam, though more of a public relations gambit than a sincere peace initiative, afforded the administration additional breathing space. even more problematic for King, the mainstream press continued to brand antiwar protesters “Vietniks.” the pillorying of the telegenic and clean-shaven Bond only months after King’s similar treatment substantiated King’s need for caution. King, andrew Young, and Bernard lee had just left Chicago for a well-deserved vacation in los angeles when the furor over Julian Bond’s condoning of SnCC’s antidraft statement threatened to traumatize the already fragmented civil rights movement. From the West Coast, King watched the exploding story with a sense of foreboding, reinforcing his fear that the nation was approaching a dangerous point at which dissent would be synonymous with treachery. an exasperated King conferred with his aides, and they decided to return to atlanta to subdue the crisis and speak out in support of Bond’s right to free expression.5 Realizing that the entire ordeal was largely self-inflicted, King resented the drain on his time and energy caused by SnCC’s penchant for recklessness. ever since the brouhaha over the seating of the mFDP in atlantic City in the summer of 1964, King had chafed at SnCC’s lack of discipline and discretion. as fellow foot soldiers for civil rights, however, they had all been called “nigger” as they marched in the Deep South, they had all been jailed in the same fetid cells, and they all dreamed the same dreams. James Forman may have had a lot of harsh words for King, but over the years, King and a number of SnCC leaders, especially John lewis, Cleveland Sellers , and Stokely Carmichael, had developed warm personal relationships.6 the Second Coming of martin luther King Jr. 171 Years later, Sellers said he had...