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King Denounces Vietnam War
As the United States grew more divided over the Vietnam War, so did the civil rights movement> Black Americans represented 11 percent of the US population, but 20 percent of US war casualties. Radical civil rights groups opposed the war, but most moderate leaders did not want to challenge President Lyndon B. Johnson, who had championed landmark civil rights laws.
In April 1967, civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. shocked America with a scathing speech opposing the costly war for undermining the fight against poverty at home/ He called the US government "the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today."
King's attack infuriated the president and most civil rights leaders. More than 160 major newspapers denounced King for being reckless and disloyal. Though public opinion began to shift against the war in the following months, King faced criticism about his anti-war stand until his assassination in 1968. |