Revolutionary condemns racist war

Jerome Teelucksingh

THIS YEAR is the 50th anniversary of the end of the Vietnam War. It was a conflict that spanned 1954-1975. There was a racial dimension to this war which is sometimes identified.

In 1961, the US began sending troops to Vietnam. And, by 1969, approximately 550,000 American troops had been sent to defeat the communist-controlled North Vietnam. The involvement of the US in the Vietnam War was a blot on its overseas military operations and race relations.

Many blacks in the US were troubled as to the reasons why so many of them were serving in the infantry units in Vietnam. Manning Marable noted, “Blacks totalled about 11-12 per cent of enlisted troops in Vietnam and always comprised significantly higher numbers of combat personnel.” This revelation indicated that the US had placed blacks in the frontline where there was a higher probability of being killed or injured.

Not surprisingly, integration existed during the 1960s but the military deliberately avoided the issue of promotion of blacks within its ranks. Task forces and committees were organised to ensure that desegregation of the army was prompt and efficient, which resulted in an incremental change in the percentage of Afro-Americans in the navy, army, marine corps, and air force.

A Trinidadian, Stokely Carmichael (who later changed his name to Kwame Ture), had migrated to New York City in the US and later became a major figure in the civil rights and Black Power era during the 1960s and 1970s. Carmichael coined the popular phrase, “Hell no, we won’t go.” This became a common slogan among protesters in the US who were against this war.

In 1967, Carmichael was one of the prominent anti-war voices at events as the New York City peace march. During the war, Carmichael fearlessly stated, “The Vietnamese never called us nig—s. They never did anything to us. Our America called us nig—s. Why then should we go fight a war against them?” Also, he was concerned about the failure of the anti-poverty programme and partly blamed America’s foreign policy.

In 1966, he argued that there is “…a federal government which cares far more about winning the war on the Vietnamese than the war on poverty; which has put the poverty programme in the hands of self-serving politicians and bureaucrats rather than the poor themselves; which is unwilling to curb the misuse of white power quick to condemn Black Power.”

Even though he was closely monitored by security/intelligence agencies, he bravely fought against inequality, injustice and racism.

Carmichael condemned the atrocities of warfare. On December 9, 1968, at the A&T University in North Carolina, Carmichael stated, “When they send you to Vietnam they don’t send you just to die, they send you to kill. And if you can kill for a country that’s done what it has to us for all these years, it should certainly be easy for you to kill for your people.”

His statements sought to sensitise blacks on the horrors of war and the need to bravely resist enlisting in the war. Such views would have prompted the government to continue surveillance of his activities. Carmichael was one of the controversial and dissenting voices who rejected the involvement of blacks in the war.

In the US, some avoided being drafted into an unjust and useless war. For instance, in 1966, Muhammad Ali refused to be conscripted into the US Army to fight in the Vietnam War. In 1967, Carmichael, speaking in London, defended Ali’s defiant stance, “…we have initiated a black resistance movement to the draft, which is being led by our hero, the world champion, Mr Muhammad Ali. We’re against black men fighting their brothers in Vietnam…”

In 1967, Ali, one of the greatest boxers of the 20th century, was sentenced to jail for disobeying the draft. He experienced more humiliation when the World Boxing Association stripped him of his title. However, the association had to return his title in 1970 when the Supreme Court in the US overturned the conviction on the basis that Ali was a “conscientious objector on religious grounds.”

There were others who were targeted. In 1968, Robert Brown publicly supported the Vietnamese people and Ho Chi Minh. Not surprisingly, Brown would be arrested by the US government for draft resistance. Brown had worked closely with Carmichael from 1967 to 1998.

Kwame Ture eventually migrated to Africa and died in 1998 in Guinea. He was one of the great orators, organisers, anti-war activists and Pan-African revolutionaries of the 20th century.

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