A Revolution of Values

Teaching Activity PDF. By the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. 3 pages.
Text of speech by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. on the Vietnam War, followed by three teaching ideas.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. speaks to a crowd of an estimated 400,000 people at the United Nations plaza after an anti-Vietnam War march, New York, New York, April 15, 1967. Credit: Fred W. McDarrah/Getty Images

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On April 4, 1967, exactly one year before his assassination, Martin Luther King Jr. delivered a speech in New York City on the occasion of his becoming Co-Chairman of Clergy and Laymen Concerned About Vietnam (subsequently renamed Clergy and Laity Concerned.)

Titled “Beyond Vietnam,” it was his first major speech on the war in Vietnam—what the Vietnamese aptly call the American War. In these excerpts, King links the escalating U.S. commitment to that war with its abandonment of the commitment to social justice at home. His call for a “shift from a ‘thing-oriented’ society to a ‘person-oriented’ society” and for us to “struggle for a new world” has acquired even greater urgency than when he issued it decades ago.

The speech concludes: “Our only hope today lies in our ability to recapture the revolutionary spirit and go out into a sometimes hostile world declaring eternal hostility to poverty, racism, and militarism. With this powerful commitment we shall boldly challenge the status quo and unjust mores and thereby speed the day when “every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall be made straight and the rough places plain …”

Now let us begin. Now let us rededicate ourselves to the long and bitter—but beautiful—struggle for a new world.”

[Download PDF above for text excerpts of speech prepared for classroom use and teaching ideas.]

This lesson was published by Rethinking Schoolsin Rethinking Globalization: Teaching for Justice in an Unjust World. For more readings and source material like “A Revolution of Values,” order Rethinking Globalization: Teaching for Justice in an Unjust World with role plays, interviews, poems, stories, background readings, cartoons, and hands-on teaching activities edited by Bill Bigelow and Bob Peterson. See Table of Contents.

Related Resources

Vincent Harding.

MLK: A Call to Conscience from Tavis Smiley Reports. An examination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s stand against the Vietnam War and the influence of his legacy today. Tavis Smiley spoke with scholars and friends of King, including Cornel West, Vincent Harding (who co-wrote Beyond Vietnam), and Susannah Heschel. The interviews were conducted at the historic Riverside Church.

Rethinking the Teaching of the Vietnam War. A free downloadable role play on the history of the Vietnam War that is left out of traditional textbooks.

Dr. Martin Luther King’s “Beyond Vietnam” (1967) speech read by Michael Ealy. From Voices of a People’s History of the United States.

Text and audio of Beyond Vietnam online at AmericanRhetoric.com

Hidden in Plain Sight: Martin Luther King’s Radical Vision: Lesson introduces high school students to the speeches and work of Dr. King beyond “I have a dream.”

The Most Dangerous Man in America Teaching Guide: A free downloadable 100-page teaching guide on the Vietnam War, the Pentagon Papers, and whistleblowing. Designed to accompany the film The Most Dangerous Man in America about Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers.

Keywords: American War, Green Beret, the West, racism, materialism, militarism