tavis: good evening. from los angeles, i am tavis smiley. tonight, part two of our life -- of the life and legacy of dr. martin luther king jr. on the unveiling of the memorial to the icon. we will look at his controversial stand against the vietnam war. we will also draw parallels between the vietnam war and current wars in iraq and afghanistan. we are gland -- we're glad you have joined us for our special, martin luther king, a call to conscience. >> every community has a martin luther king boulevard. it's the cornerstone we all know. it's not just a street or boulevard, but a place where wal-mart stands together with your community to make every day

better. >> nationwide insurance supports tavis smiley. with every question and answer, help tavis improve financial literacy and remove obstacles to economic empowerment one conversation at a time. nationwide is on your side. at toyota, we celebrate differences and the people that make them. toyota, proud supporter of the martin luther king jr. memorial. >> and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. [captioning made possible by kcet public television] tavis: tonight we bring you part two of our special.

dr. king's speech crystallizes you on 9 violence and the impact that war has on the least among us. -- crystallizes his opinion on non violence and the impact that war has. the impact of for even today. dr. king was well aware that a younger generation of leaders was calling violence -- non violence obsolete. they climbed a term which would define the movement. >> what do you mean when you shout "black power?" >> i mean that the only way that people in mississippi will they will create an attitude where they will not be shot down like pigs or dogs is that they get the power to is to to justice. >> dr. king understood their anger but could not agree to

their tactics. many cities erupted with the violence and the mainstream media sees them what they called urban riots, dr. king sought to reach out to those who said he had lost touch. harry belafonte remembers the aftermath of one such meeting. >> i said to him, what troubles you, martin? he said, well, i just came from that meeting with the young people in newark.they said much. they made great justification for why they saw violence as an important tool to their liberation. i told them to take the pain that there was -- they were experiencing and that there is another way. when i left, i felt they had not been convinced and i had not gone to them in the way that i

would have liked to have gotten to them. -- i have not gotten to them. tavis: this is one of the famous houses of worship in the country. the edifice attracted wealthy and influential individuals from all walks of life. dr. king had preached here many times. the riverside church was not without the fact segregation. african-americans were not welcome at the front of the church. gwendolyn shepherd, a childhood friend of the man she called ml, was in the pews that night. >> they did not want me sitting here. that is how i used to get to sit whenever i wanted to, whenever he spoke. tavis: literally one year to the day after he speaks in your church, april 4th, 1967, he shot

dead. i raise that to ask whether or not to the best of your recollection that that was the last time that you saw him speaking person. >> that is correct. tavis: >beyond the norm was a long speech. when he finished, the crowd erupts in sustained applause. -- beyond vietnam was a long speech. that support was short-lived. the political fallout was intense and far reaching. the already strained relationship between president johnson and dr. king became fractured beyond repair. donations to king's organization began to dry up and the mainstream press denounced him in no uncertain terms charging that he was not qualified to evaluate u.s. foreign-policy. >is anything that his handlers

or organizers could have done differently beyond the words that he uttered that might change the way he was treated? was this place are relevant and it just rested on his words. >> i think he would have caught the same firestorm. what they said is that we don't like your message. we are in the middle of a war and we don't want to hear someone say that we are pilot. you are a civil rights leader, stick the war to what -- you are a civil rights leader, stick to what you know. they said he would never be respected again. shut up and go back to talking about we shall overcome. tavis: "the washington post," said that he has diminished his usefulness to his cause, to his country, and to his people. "the new york times," said that

the confusion of the two issues could be disastrous for both causes. as sharp as those assessments were, they did not seem as much as the criticism that came from many of his colleagues from within the civil rights movement. >> he saw the world through a door and many civil rights leaders were limited and they attacked him along with the white house and the democratic party. they said that you are taking attention away from civil rights by focusing on vietnam. he said, the war on poverty and money is going to the war in vietnam. >> i remember one day because they were all attacking him, why is he speaking about something he does not know anything about, it is not our business, as though he is not a citizen. it is not our children dying penn. >tavis: you get the sense that

they angered by this negro getting out of his lane. this is not what we want you to run in. that comes pretty clear to me in my reading of it. >> if dr. king has stepped into this issue and said i approve of all that you do, all he would have been exhausted. he is a man of vision who leaves his people interests and he is the best in american political goals. what he did was to do the unthinkable and the undesirable. as a black man, he revealed he had the capacity to think and to analysis, including history. these are global issues. he would take on the establishment and say, shame on you.

>> the right and health is not enough. i cannot forget that the nobel peace prize was also a commission. >> let me just say this about vietnam and his speech. i don't think that any people have known a greater terror than the black people have known in america. this is not to play heads up or who has suffered the most or to dismiss what took place in auschwitz or what the nazis did or what the japanese did. this is not about that. this is about the fact that dr. king understood terror. he lived with it every day. it was no twin towers but it was a bomb.

his wife and children's lives were in jeopardy. he had been driven off the road. he looked around him and he saw a lot of murder. tavis: he was stabbed here in new york. violence and terrorism was not an abstract. for anyone to suggest that there is some current design on terror that would overwhelm dr. king and to have him in counter a debate on it is somehow -- >> i don't think that the issue was being a pacifist. that is not what he called on everyone to be. he called on everyone to put justice at the center and he said that violence does not

create violence some -- justice. tavis: tony bennett was one of the first non african-americans to be on the front line. he saw the horrors of combat as a soldier in world war ii. >> there has never been a good war. there has never been one. this is legalized murder. your mother teaches you to believe in god and then at 17, they will show you how to kill. this is pretty schizophrenic. this does not make sense. we say, believe in god, believe in being a human being and give them to the earth instead of taking. tavis: the fallout from "beyond vietnam," continue to take a

toll. >> people would not show up. they turned against him. this was a long journey. he gained strength even in the solitary role because he felt that the right would prevail. that became his ultimate strength. i would rather live with my conscience then with the crowd. he said that he cannot follow opinion polls. tavis: when dr. king was assassinated, nearly 3/4 of americans disapprove of his stance in the vietnam war. many in the african-american community criticized him. he was already a relic.

they thought that he had gone soft. the black power movement was going on. who was on his side? >> we know when he was shot dead, they had 72% disapproval ratings in the country, 75% and black america. what they saw was martin luther king jr. bearing witness, living his life, a committed life, that is what he wanted to leave behind. a committed life to justice which pitted him against the same johnson administration which had courageously supported the black freedom movement against white supremacists. the civil-rights movement against jim crow in the south. again, you see the connection of thought and action, concept and deed.

a witness as well as a truth teller. we have to keep in mind that this great truth teller was called the most notorious liar by the fbi. tavis: and the most dangerous man in america. >> when you love for people that much, working people that much, you will be dangerous to the powers that be. never while king's faith wavered, those closest to him were well aware of the bouts of depression. >> he was definitely getting more lonely. remember, from the pinnacle of this great movement in selma that brought people down to march and journalists from all over the world, to crusade for the voting rights act, that had only been a couple of years before. the movement splintered over whether they should go north, black power, then he took on the

war. finally, he had to take on the poor people's campaign. by the time he did that, he was very very isolated and lonely. the bouts of depression continued. i think it became stronger. i think he was driven more by conscience to make more of a witness. tavis: jesse jackson remembers a crucial meeting of family and friends. he came in the meeting and said, i have had a migraine headache. i thought about quitting. we came from the back of the bus and the public foundations and the right to vote. i felt really down, i felt depressed. it is likened georgia, we have been turning a - into a plus.

we have to go on to memphis. i took copious notes. it was like jesus let this cup pass for me. i have healed the sick, i have tried to do my father's will. i am not understood even by my own family members. as he prayed, the cycle slipped. i saw him walking out of that because it was a tough time. he was in real isolation because sometimes the roles to ultimate change and that is the tension between politics and -- that is a real tension. tavis: if martin king was alive today, with his unrelenting

opinion of find an audience or would be seen as hubris? >> i have wondered whether he would be invited. i have wondered sometimes going to the big mega churches who might have a martin luther king celebration, martin luther king shows up. i would like to speak my celebration. what are you going to say? i'm going to speak out against poverty, injustice, the wars that are going on. well, we have invited these political leaders and they might be embarrassed if you talk about that. you just wondered if you'd be welcome. >> every year now, the 25 years we have celebrated the

anniversary of king's birds -- birth, you get him transformed into santa claus. everyone is smiling, glad to see him as if he was not a freedom fighter who was not done nerving and unsettling. he made people shake in their boots and they were hunting him down every day from december of 1955 to his death. that is one of the ways in which they domesticate people who were on fire for justice. tavis: what became clear to me was how profound the influence people who came in contact with dr. king. whether or not they knew him personally or just came to know his words through the prism of history.

>> what i have had to do is to concentrate on what he would want rather than showing my anger. a lot of it is still in me. he could take what he took, there's nothing that i cannot take. >> dr. king had a vision for the future. he held up something, he did not simply scold us. he did and he should but he also had visions for us. we thought, how extraordinary that it is possible for a human being to become a martin luther king. that is remarkable. if that is possible, then other things are possible. we need the inspiration. tavis: we decided to conclude

our conversation with the primary architect of the important speech and the connection that he believes that it had to dr. king's death. >> i am convinced that that bullet had something to do with that speech. over the years that has been quite a struggle. tavis: vincent harding turned to dr. larson who is dealing with his own sense of struggle. less than a week later, he would be assassinated while standing on the balcony of a hotel in memphis.

>> i'm still wrestling with my own difficulties. one day i was on the phone with jim about something or another and i said to him, how do you feel about that. how have you felt about that? he probably picked up what irish try to struggle with. -- what i was trying to struggle with. he said, what is clear to me was that martin wanted to come to memphis. i said, when i first called to invite him, he was in a staff meeting. i could hear the voices just

booming on to the telephone, tell me you cannot come. martin, we have too much to do. he said, martin paid no attention. he said, let's are rented. that told me that i was not coercing him, i was not forcing him, it was not me primarily. he needed to stand with them. i do not take that on my own shoulders, vincent. that was a kind of burden off of my shoulders but i know that is what martin wanted and needed to say.

if he was willing to go up against them, then it was a privilege for me to go with him. tavis: despite the negative reaction, dr. king never backed from his conviction. his sermon topic was to be why america may go to hell. >> now let us begin. now let us rededicate ourselves to the struggle for a new world. shall we tell them the struggle is too hard? will there be another message of logging, hope, solidarity? of commitment to their cause,

whatever the cost. the choice is ours. we might have preferred otherwise, we must -- in this crucial moment in history. tavis: dr. king's opposition to the vietnam war was not the controversial aspect. he traveled to memphis to speak on behalf of striking sanitation workers and that the growing gap between the rich and poor in america. one can only imagine how he would you issues like poverty. they find themselves among the ranks of the nation's poor. he linked the war and poverty together and he reminded this then and now that war is the enemy of the poor. that is our show for tonight.

i will see you next time. good night from los angeles. as always, keep the faith. >> for more information on today's show, visit tavis smiley at pbs.org. tavis: hi, i'm tavis smiley. join me next time for a consersation with with xavier becerra on his role as part of the super committee. >> every community has a martin luther king boulevard. it's the cornerstone we all know. it's not just a street or boulevard, but a place where wal-mart stands together with your community to make every day better. >> nationwide insurance supports tavis smiley. with every question and answer, help tavis improve financial literacy and remove obstacles to economic empowerment one conversation at a time. nationwide is on your side.

>> at toyota, we celebrate differences and the people who make them. toyota, supporter of the martin luther king national project foundation. >> and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. [captioning made possible by kcet public television] kcet public television]