His wife, Coretta Scott King, took a more active role in opposing the war, speaking at a rally at the Washington Monument on 27 November 1965 with Benjamin Spock, the renowned pediatrician and anti-war activist, and joined in other demonstrations.
Fearful of being labeled a Communist, which would diminish the impact of his civil rights work, King tempered his criticism of U.S. King’s opposition to the war provoked criticism from members of Congress, the press, and from his civil rights colleagues who argued that expanding his civil rights message to include foreign affairs would harm the black freedom struggle in America. I must cry out when I see war escalated at any point” (“Opposes Vietnam War”). Later that year King framed the issue of war in Vietnam as a moral issue: “As a minister of the gospel,” he said, “I consider war an evil. He supported Johnson’s calls for diplomatic negotiations and economic development as the beginnings of such a step. Though he avoided condemning the war outright, at the August 1965 annual Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) convention King called for a halt to bombing in North Vietnam, urged that the United Nations be empowered to mediate the conflict, and told the crowd that “what is required is a small first step that may establish a new spirit of mutual confidence … a step capable of breaking the cycle of mistrust, violence and war” (King, 12 August 1965). Johnson, who had been instrumental in passing civil rights legislation and who had declared in April 1965 that he was willing to negotiate a diplomatic end to the war in Vietnam. foreign policy would damage his relationship with President Lyndon B. While King was personally opposed to the war, he was concerned that publicly criticizing U.S. Answering press questions after addressing a Howard University audience on 2 March 1965, King asserted that the war in Vietnam was “accomplishing nothing” and called for a negotiated settlement (Schuette, “King Preaches on Non-Violence”). Kennedy sent the first American troops into Vietnam, Martin Luther King, Jr., issued his first public statement on the war.
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