Notices by D. Elisabeth Glassco (deglassco@mastodon.social)

Congressman John Roy Lynch (R-MS), author of “The Facts of Reconstruction,” a foundational text that set the record straight on the lie that Black people didn’t participate in their own emancipation; 1st Black Speaker of the House in Mississippi, and 1st elected Congressmen from Mississippi.

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They referred to her as “Moses” for guiding the enslaved from the South to freedom in the North. But, Harriet Tubman’s resistance to slavery extended beyond her role in the Underground Railroad. As a Union Army soldier and spy during the Civil War, she made history by becoming the first woman to lead an armed US military mission.

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Image: “Harriet Tubman,” by Mark Fredrickson

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There is an iconic photograph of a black man in what resembles a confederate uniform. It suggests that he was a confederate soldier. In reality, he was a slave. This misrepresentation obscures complex and often painful truths of history, replacing them with a simplified and inaccurate account.

To read uninterrupted text: https://open.substack.com/pub/400years/p/will-we-believe-our-lying-eyes?r=1pv9e3&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web

Video Blog: https://youtube.com/@400YearsUNLeashed?si=DCP_AUYj-_7PrZWS

Video Blog 2: https://youtube.com/@BlackBiographics?si=kEV7S1ZL70qlLFCK

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Image: Clark Lee, an enslaved black man to a Confederate white officer,

Vernon Ferdinand Dahmer's fight for voting rights and against racial terror is emblematic of the grassroots activism that characterized the civil rights movement. And he paid the ultimate price. His story is a powerful narrative of resistance and resilience against the backdrop of one of America's most oppressive periods in American history.

Image: My Vote by Ricardo Levins Morales

Read uninterrupted text, go here:

https://open.substack.com/pub/400years/p/the-very-lengths-to-which-white-supremacy?r=1pv9e3&utm_medium=ios&utm_campaign=post

Video, go here:

https://youtube.com/@400YearsUNLeashed?si=cYOV6p9QBZ13WN0G

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While King had previously expressed criticism of the Vietnam War, it was his impassioned "Beyond Vietnam" speech, delivered at an event sponsored by "Clergy and Laymen Concerned about Vietnam," that garnered widespread attention. King who typically delivered speeches w/o reading from a text, read out "Beyond Vietnam" because he intended to submit it to publications and wanted to ensure his words were accurately conveyed without misquotation.

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Image: MLK speaking in rural Alabama, 1966

Some 56 years ago, on April 4, 1967, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. articulated the devastating impact of the war on both impoverished Americans & Vietnamese peasants, asserting it was a moral imperative for America to take radical, nonviolent steps to end the conflict.

It was a speech that surprised many of his supporters.

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Image: US helicopters, Tay Ninh, Cambodian border, 1965

If you want to read uninterrupted text:

Blog; https://400years.substack.com/p/when-the-good-king-became-the-bad

Video Archive:
https://m.youtube.com/@400YearsUNLeashed/videos

In a variation of his “Transformed Nonconformist” sermon delivered in January 1966 at Ebenezer Baptist Church, King openly expressed his opposition to the Vietnam War, condemning American aggression as a violation of the 1954 Geneva Accord, which promised self-determination.

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Image: King speaking in Washington, D.C., in February 1968

King’s public opposition to the Vietnam War began to emerge in March 1965 when he stated, “millions of dollars can be spent every day to hold troops in South Viet Nam, and our country cannot protect the rights of Negroes in Selma.” King, speaking on “Face the Nation,” and at the United Nations emphasized his prophetic role as a minister and his deep concern for global peace and mankind’s survival, further solidifying his commitment to the anti-war cause.

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https://youtu.be/YpGFOiSTs3Q?si=xS9RA36ScZmF2X14

In early 1967, King intensified his anti-war stance, delivering similar speeches in Los Angeles and Chicago. His Los Angeles speech, titled “The Casualties of the War in Vietnam,” highlighted the war’s history and advocated for redirecting American power towards peace and humanity, rather than unleashing it inhumanely on defenseless people.

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Image: Under sniper fire, a Vietnamese woman carries a child to safety, My Son, near Da Nang, 25 April 1965.

On April 4, accompanied by Amherst College Professor Henry Commager, Union Theological Seminary President John Bennett, and Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, King addressed over 3,000 attendees at New York’s Riverside Church during an event sponsored by Clergy and Laymen Concerned about Vietnam.

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Image: Rabbi Heschel and Dr. King at Arlington National Cemetery, February 6, 1968

King wanted to expose the inconsistency of U.S. foreign policies when juxtaposed with the persisting domestic inequality in America. This address, often referred to as "The Riverside Church Speech," faced criticism from various quarters, including prominent media outlets like The New York Times and the Washington Post, as well as organizations like the NAACP, which objected to the Civil Rights Movement's involvement in anti-war protests.

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Image: US paratroopers, Ben Cat on 25 September 1965.

The speech was a collaborative effort primarily authored by Dr. Vincent Harding, who hailed from Harlem, New York City, and completed his undergraduate studies at City College of New York. Additionally, he obtained a Master's degree in Journalism from Columbia University, served in the U.S. Army from 1953 to 1955, and earned a PhD in History from the University of Chicago in 1965.

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Image: Vincent Harding speaks at the Eighth Mennonite World Conference in Amsterdam, 1967.

Throughout his address, King skillfully wove vivid imagery to illustrate the harrowing realities of the war, evoking a sense of outrage at its injustices. For instance, he painted a stark picture of, "Negro and white boys on TV screens, killing and dying together for a nation that had segregated them in schools."

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Image: A wounded American soldier is bought to a landing zone north of Saigon in March, 1966.

In "Beyond Vietnam - A Time to Break Silence," King employed a masterful use of imagery, diction, and parallel structure to draw poignant associations between the Vietnam War and injustice.

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Image: Dr. Martin Luther King urged in a press conference the Johnson administration consider prompt U.S. withdrawal from the Vietnam war, in Miami on April 13, 1966

When asked about the choice of the title "Beyond Vietnam" during a period when the country was deeply entrenched in the war, Harding explained in an interview with Tavis Smiley, "This goes beyond merely withdrawing from Vietnam. It pertains to breaking free from a particular mindset, a way of perceiving ourselves and the world."

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Image: Vincent Harding, 2005

Similarly, King's portrayal of men, regardless of race, "in brutal solidarity burning the huts of a poor village," emphasized the war's catastrophic & inhumane nature.

When he asserted that all this brutality was carried out in the name of America, he stirred the audience's anger, compelling them to break their silence about the injustice of the war.

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Image: Buddhist monks and women pull at a barbed-wire barricade, Saigon, Giac Minh Pagoda, July 27, 1963.

King emphasized his responsibility to the American people & explained how conversations with young, poor black men reinforced his commitment to nonviolence.

This poignant imagery not only underscored the horrors of war but also connected the struggles of racial segregation to the Vietnam conflict, resonating deeply with his audience at Riverside Church, who could empathize with injustices committed by the American government.

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Image: Long Binh, Vietnam: Black soldiers, 1972

Moreover, King employed the powerful technique of parallelism within his discourse to elicit emotional responses from his audience. His repeated use of the phrase, "for the sake of," created a rhythmic cadence that enhanced receptivity to his message.

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Image: Medic Thomas Cole looks up with his one unbandaged eye as he treats wounded Staff Sergeant Harrison Pell during a firefight on 30 January 1966

This deliberate choice of allowed King to argue that addressing the oppressor, America, was essential in advocating for the oppressed.

King's characterization of the war as "broken and eviscerated" set a tone of disappointment, condemning the war as morally bankrupt. When he insisted that the war's immorality should be "incandescently clear," he implied that those who remained silent were complicit in the erosion of America's integrity and values.

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Image: May 26, 1967, cover of TIME.

Throughout this speech, King carefully selected words with negative connotations to firmly associate the Vietnam War with injustice. By labeling Americs as the "greatest purveyor of violence" and accusing it of favoring "massive doses of violence to solve its problems," he effectively cast the U.S. government as the principal wrongdoer.

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Image: Exhausted South Vietnamese soldiers sleep on a US Navy troop carrier taking them back to the provincial capital of Ca Mau in August 1962.