The 1960’s witnessed two profound social movements: the civil rights movement and the movement protesting the war in Vietnam. Although they overlapped in time, they were largely distinct.
For a brief moment in 1967, however, it appeared that the two movements might unite under the leadership of Martin Luther King, Jr. King’s role in the antiwar movement appears to require little explanation, since he was the foremost advocate of onviolence of his time.
But King’s stance on the Vietnam War cannot be explained in terms of pacifism r all, he was something of a latecomer to the antiwar movement, even though by 1965 he was convinced that the role of the United States in the war was indefensible. Why then the two years that passed before he translated his private misgivings into public dissent?
Perhaps he believed that he could not criticize American foreign policy without endangering the support for civil rights that he had won from the federal government.
金在反越戰運動中的地位似乎毋需任何解釋，既然他是他那個時代最為傑出的 非暴力（nonviolence）倡導者。
但金有關越戰的立場單靠和平主義（pacifism）是無法得以解釋的。畢竟，在某種程度上他是反越戰運動的姍姍來遲者，雖然早在1965年，他已確信美國在越戰中的地位是無可辨解的。那麼，為什麼只有在經過了二年之後，他才將其個人的私下憂慮轉化異議呢？
或許他相信，一旦他批評美國的.外交政策，這必將會危及到他從政府那裡業已贏得的對民權運動的支援。（直譯為：或許他相信，他不可能在不危及到他從聯邦政府那裡業已贏得的對民權運動的支援
的情況下來批評美國的外交政策）。