My third reason moves to an even deeper level of awareness, for it grows out of my experience in the ghettos of the North over the last three years, especially the last three summers. As I have walked among the desperate, rejected, and angry young men, I have told them that Molotov cocktails and rifles would not solve their problems. I have tried to offer them my deepest compassion while maintaining my conviction that social change comes most meaningfully through nonviolent action. But they asked, and rightly so, “What about Vietnam?” They asked if our own nation wasn’t using massive doses of violence to solve its problems, to bring about the changes it wanted.
Martin Luther King points out the major inconsistencies that were prevalent and existent within the debate of the purpose, meaning, and tactics of the Vietnam War. Martin Luther King compares of his teachings versus the hypocritical stance of the Vietnam War. He uses his teachings of non-violent practices when fighting for a purpose in comparison to the violence that is being required for the people to use in Vietnam. He hates and showcases his uneasiness when trying to explain the reasoning for the violence, but there is no particular reason for the violence when fighting for a cause. His uncertainty resembles the uncertainty of President Johnson when he decided to go into a war that really did not possess a certain reason for a war besides the domino theory of communism even though Vietnam was truly out of our hands. The acts of the Vietnam War not only go against the morals of the United States but the morals of Martin Luther Kings, his teachings, and the people as well.