Martin Luther King Jr. Speeches in Opposition to the Vietnam War in the Final Year of His Life: "My conscience leaves me no other choice...

1968. [Civil Rights][MLK Jr.][Vietnam War][Anti-War] King, Martin Luther, Jr. Speeches by The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. About the War in Vietnam (1968) marks a decisive and controversial moment in the Civil Rights Movement when the famed preacher and activist voiced a strong opposition to American military intervention in Vietnam. Delivered between April 1967 and February 1968, these addresses articulate King's moral, theological, and political indictment of the Vietnam War at a moment when such criticism risked alienating liberal allies and federal support. In speeches titled "Vietnam and the Struggle for Human Rights," "The Domestic Impact of the War in Vietnam," and "Vietnam Is Upon Us," King frames the war as an issue inseparable from racial injustice and economic exploitation at home, asserting, "my conscience leaves me no other choice." The volume reflects the final year of King's life, when he increasingly linked civil rights, poverty, and global anti-colonial struggle into a unified critique of American power.

King, Martin Luther, Jr. Speeches by The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. About the War in Vietnam. New York: Clergy and Laymen Concerned About Vietnam, 1968. Printed April 1968. The pamphlet gathers three speeches originally delivered April 1967, November 11, 1967, and February 6, 1968, and was issued under the auspices of Clergy and Laymen Concerned About Vietnam, the interfaith organization King helped organize in 1965. Also included is a folded letter from the organization dated October 1968 introducing the collection and listing members.

Published only weeks after King's assassination in April 1968, the collection preserves his sustained argument that the war represented a "nightmarish conflict" draining moral authority and resources from the struggle against poverty and racism. By framing Vietnam as both a foreign policy crisis and a moral catastrophe, King publicly aligned the Civil Rights Movement with global antiwar activism, intensifying divisions within American political life. The inclusion of the October 1968 organizational letter further situates the pamphlet within an active interfaith network mobilizing clergy and laity against U.S. intervention. Light tanning to extremities, otherwise clean and well preserved. Overall condition near fine. A contemporaneous documentary record of King's most politically consequential and controversial public stance during the final year of his leadership.