[RADIOLAB INTRO]

LATIF NASSER: Okay.

LULU MILLER: Okay. Hello?

LATIF: All right, so—so hey. Hi. Lulu, okay, you know I studied history in grad school.

LULU: I do, yes. History of science.

LATIF: History of science.

LULU: Mm-hmm.

LATIF: And I love history, and I really do think, as you know from how often I pitch it through here, I feel like it's just like an infinite source of stories that are cinematic and profound and that will, like, make you see the—our present in a totally different way.

LULU: Mm-hmm.

LATIF: And yet when I look at, you know, like, the History Channel or just, like, pop history, right?

LULU: Mm-hmm.

LATIF: Like, you see what you see on TV, or even here in podcasts, it's just so cartoonish and filled with, like, conspiracy theories about aliens, and fixated on certain moments in history and kind of rehashing the same thing over and over and over again.

LULU: It's also kind of very dull.

LATIF: Yeah.

LULU: Just very dull.

LATIF: It's like okay, like, here's another documentary about, like, Civil War weapons or something.

LULU: [laughs] Yeah.

LATIF: There are precious few shows that don't do that, that takes history on its own terms and are able to tap into the profundity, the beauty, the what I think of is the real exhilarating part of, like, looking at the past. And one of those shows, which is the reason we're sitting here, is the NPR show Throughline.

LULU: We love them. They do great stuff, and maybe there's some of you out there who haven't heard of them. And in certain ways they're kind of—I would call them, like, spiritual cousins to us.

LATIF: That's right.

LULU: Their hosts, Rund Abdelfatah and Ramtin Arablouei, find these quirky, often untold history stories. They just do it in such a gripping way, and it turns out they've just hit their fifth birthday.

LATIF: Happy birthday.

LULU: Happy birthday, Throughline. And I had the pleasure of kind of watching this show come into being. I actually sat, like, right next to Ramtin at NPR when I used to work there. And he came in as a musician who was really interested in reporting, and just always wanted to do more, and so he actually writes a lot of the original music in the show. We wanted to share one today.

LATIF: Yeah. There's so many of their episodes that we love. We could've chosen any of them, but we decided to pick one that was just released a few months ago. It's called "Dare to Dissent."

LULU: And this episode, it's structured into these three acts. Each has a super cinematic story where somebody dissents.

LATIF: And not just dissents, just sort of stands up and speaks their mind, but stands up and speaks their mind to their own in-group.

LULU: Yeah.

LATIF: Saying something that their friends very much do not want to hear.

LULU: And each tale shows in a different way how an act that maybe does not seem successful in the moment can have this long tail, like a little subtle butterfly effect that changes things for us today.

LATIF: We both found it really moving, especially nowadays because, you know, it can feel really hard to speak your mind. Whatever your politics are, whatever your opinions are, if you disagree with your friends it can feel really hard to say that. But if you do say something ...

LULU: There are often real consequences. Yeah, we're seeing that all around in all different kinds of ways. So we wanted to play this one for you. Again, it's from Throughline. It's called "Dare to Dissent." Here's Ramtin.

RAMTIN ARABLOUEI: When I was a kid, my father took me to see the film Malcolm X by Spike Lee. I had begged him to take me because I'd just read Malcolm X's autobiography. And I can think of no other movie experience that had such a profound impact on me. And there was one scene in it that I carry with me until this day, a scene that never fails to give me goosebumps. It's towards the end of the film.

[ARCHIVE CLIP, "A Change is Gonna Come"]

RUND ABDELFATAH: The scene begins with a shot of five Black men riding in a Cadillac. It's the 1960s. Their faces look sullen and determined. The song by Sam Cooke, "A Change Is Gonna Come," provides the score.

[ARCHIVE CLIP, "A Change is Gonna Come": "Oh, and just like the river, I've been running."]

RUND ABDELFATAH: Then it cuts to a shot of Denzel Washington as Malcolm X driving his own car. His face is stoic as he stares into the distance. He and the men in the other car are headed towards the Audubon Ballroom in New York City, towards a point where their timelines will collide. When Malcolm X parks his car and gets out to walk to the ballroom, Spike Lee uses his famous dolly shot, which makes him look like he's floating towards his doom, almost like fate is pulling him magnetically. For the entire movie, he was defiant, rebellious and strong. But here in this scene, Malcolm X looks resigned and heartbroken.

RUND ABDELFATAH: Malcolm X never seemed afraid of the US government. What seemed to worry him was the threat from his own brothers and sisters in the Nation of Islam, the organization he'd belonged to for more than a decade. Months before he drove to the Audubon Ballroom to give his final speech, Malcolm X openly and aggressively criticized the Nation of Islam's leaders for their corruption. He'd been suspended and then decided to leave the group. Malcolm X had made the impossible decision to criticize the organization that had helped him change his life, that had made him one of the most influential people in the world. And he did it because he felt he had to tell the truth, no matter how much it cost him. And it was that action that made him a target for the Nation of Islam, a member of which would assassinate him at the Audubon Ballroom on February 21, 1965.

RUND ABDELFATAH: For me, the lesson of that scene in the movie was that in life, the most dangerous and powerful thing a person can often do is to stand up not against their enemies, but against their friends, to question and criticize the beliefs of their in-group, the people who are on their side. In the next year, as the United States heads into what likely will be one of the most bitter and divided elections ever, that lesson may be an important one for us all to remember, because the reality is, the more we cordon ourselves into sides, choosing to ignore our conscience simply in order to win, we are taking on a posture of war. And the outcome of that will only bring pain and loss.

RUND ABDELFATAH: So a group of us here at Throughline decided to tell some of the most powerful stories of people who stood up against their in-group and took the ultimate risk for what they thought was right, no matter the cost—just like Malcolm X did. I'm Ramtin Arablouei, and on this episode of Throughline from NPR, producers Cristina Kim and Anya Steinberg will join me to tell you three stories of people who did that brave thing, what it cost them, and why they did it anyway. Coming up, Cristina Kim brings us the story of Sophie Scholl.

ANNOUNCER: Part One: Spring Will Come Again.

[ARCHIVE CLIP, Sophie Scholl (voice actor): There are two roses on my bedside table. Strings of tiny beads have formed on the stems and the foliage, which hangs down into the water. What a pure and beautiful sight.]

CRISTINA KIM: Imagine you're a college student on your way to class at the University of Munich in Germany. It's Thursday, the 18 of February, 1943, and the sun is breaking out from behind the clouds. It's wartime, and even though you can't escape the reality of Hitler's regime ...

[ARCHIVE CLIP, Adolf Hitler: [shouting in German]]

CRISTINA KIM: ... as you head to your lecture in the main building, you find yourself laughing and enjoying the sunshine as the Third Reich continues to double down on its ideas of total war and obedience.

[ARCHIVE CLIP, Adolf Hitler: [shouting in German]]

CRISTINA KIM: The minute class ends, you pour out of the building with your fellow students, eager to get some fresh air, but all of a sudden, you're hit with a waterfall of papers cascading from the sky. You timidly catch one in your hand. It says ...

ALEXANDRA LLOYD: [speaking German] For us, there is only one slogan: fight against the party.]

CRISTINA KIM: You instinctively throw the paper down to the ground. It's calling for the end of Hitler. It's urging you to wake up. It's dangerous even to look at.

[ARCHIVE CLIP, student (voice actor): We have grown up in a state which ruthlessly gags all freedom of expression. The Hitler Youth, the SA and the SS have tried to homogenize, radicalize and anesthetize us.]

CRISTINA KIM: It was 1943, and those words were part of a series of pamphlets written by the White Rose, a group of German students and one professor who opposed the Nazi regime.

ALEXANDRA LLOYD: So the sixth pamphlet really is calling on students to rise up to escape from the shackles of Nazism.

CRISTINA KIM: This is Alexandra Lloyd.

ALEXANDRA LLOYD: I'm a fellow by special election in German at St. Edmund Hall at the University of Oxford.

CRISTINA KIM: She's also ...

ALEXANDRA LLOYD: The author of Defying Hitler: The White Rose Pamphlets.

CRISTINA KIM: On that day in Munich, if you dared look up, you would have seen a young woman, her hair cut short, throwing the papers off the highest balcony in the building. Her name was Sophie Scholl.

ALEXANDRA LLOYD: Sophie Scholl was in many ways a typical girl of her generation.

[ARCHIVE CLIP, Hitler Youth: [singing in German]]

ALEXANDRA LLOYD: Sophie was a very enthusiastic member of the Hitler Youth organization.

[ARCHIVE CLIP, Hitler Youth: [singing in German]]

CRISTINA KIM: Sophie did not begin her life as a radical—far from it. But within her own household, she was exposed to other ideas.

ALEXANDRA LLOYD: She was growing up in a house with a father who was an anti-fascist. He was absolutely opposed to Nazism, but he was also a true liberal. So he allowed his children to discover for themselves what was wrong with Nazism, rather than simply dictatorially telling them that they couldn't have anything to do with the Nazis.

CRISTINA KIM: And when she was 16, something happened to Sophie that would spark a change in her. The Gestapo, the Nazi secret police, arrested her brother Hans for his alleged homosexuality, and for participating in youth groups that were not Nazi sanctioned. They also arrested Sophie and two other siblings.

ALEXANDRA LLOYD: And I think this is a really important moment because it brings home how dangerous the regime is, and it brings home the idea that really no one is safe. And the Scholl children are—and this is what's so remarkable in some ways about this story, the Scholl children are really ideal Germans for the Nazi regime. They're strong, healthy. They like all the right things. They're Aryan. They tick all of these kind of Nazi boxes. But at this point, there's a shift.

CRISTINA KIM: It's a shift that's evident in Sophie's letters to her boyfriend, a German soldier.

[ARCHIVE CLIP, Sophie Scholl (voice actor): My dear Fritz, I just can't grasp that people's lives are now under constant threat from other people. I'll never understand it, and I find it terrible. Don't go telling me it's for the Fatherland's sake.]

[ARCHIVE CLIP, Adolf Hitler: [shouting in German]]

[ARCHIVE CLIP, Sophie Scholl (voice actor): I'm trying hard to remain as impervious as possible to current influences—not the ideological and political kind, which have ceased to have the slightest effect on me, but atmospheric influences. [speaking German]]

CRISTINA KIM: "It's necessary to have a hard spirit and a tender heart."

[ARCHIVE CLIP, Sophie Scholl (voice actor): To be honest, I rather hanker to be on my own because I have an urge to act on what so far has existed within me merely as an idea, as what I perceive to be right.]

CRISTINA KIM: And what she perceived to be right was that people needed to stop being cogs in the Nazi machine and pay attention to what was happening. Thousands of German soldiers had died in Hitler's war. Jewish families had violently disappeared, and freedom of speech and thought were dead. Sophie was ready to do something, so on the eve of her 21st birthday, she moved to Munich to be with her brother Hans and study at the University of Munich. Once there, everything changed as Sophie's role in The White Rose began.

ALEXANDRA LLOYD: The White Rose resistance circle was a group who took action against the Nazi regime by producing anti-fascist, anti-war pamphlets.

CRISTINA KIM: Sophie's brother Hans co-founded the movement. The first pamphlet was produced in June 1942, and Sophie was there almost from the very beginning.

ALEXANDRA LLOYD: She's one of a collective, but she is the only woman right at the heart of the White Rose.

CRISTINA KIM: Sophie was tasked with the dangerous job of making sure the resistance pamphlets were reproduced and reached as many people as possible, which at the time was no small feat.

ALEXANDRA LLOYD: Getting paper, getting a duplicating machine, a typewriter, ink, all of these things that you need, is really difficult because it's wartime, so there are shortages. You can't go into a post office in Nazi Germany and say "I'd like a hundred stamps."

CRISTINA KIM: Sophie scoured for envelopes and stamps wherever she could find them. She even asked Fritz, her boyfriend, in some of her letters.

[ARCHIVE CLIP, Sophie Scholl (voice actor): PS - Could you get me a pack of envelopes sometime?]

CRISTINA KIM: Once she'd gathered enough supplies without drawing suspicion, she and the other members would leave the pamphlets around Munich, as well as randomly select addresses and mail the pamphlets directly to homes. It might sound simple, but even walking to the mailbox was very dangerous.

ALEXANDRA LLOYD: You are always at risk of being stopped and searched, so transporting copies of illegal pamphlets is in no way a safe nor sensible thing to do.

CRISTINA KIM: For Sophie, the message she was spreading was worth it.

[ARCHIVE CLIP, speaker (voice actor): We are attempting to reawaken the gravely wounded German spirit from within.]

[ARCHIVE CLIP, speaker (voice actor): Since the conquest of Poland, 300,000 Jews have been murdered in that country.]

[ARCHIVE CLIP, speaker (voice actor): This rebirth must, however, be preceded by full recognition of guilt with which the German people have burdened themselves.]

ALEXANDRA LLOYD: To have a piece of writing like this in this period, calling out so directly the persecution of Jewish people is incredible.

[ARCHIVE CLIP, speaker (voice actor): Here we see the most horrific crime against human dignity, a crime unparalleled in all of human history.]

[ARCHIVE CLIP, speaker (voice actor): We will not be silent. We are your bad conscience. The White Rose will never leave you in peace.]

CRISTINA KIM: And that's what brings us back to that sunny Thursday in Munich in 1943. The White Rose had just finished making their sixth pamphlet, but they'd run out of stamps and envelopes, so they concocted a plan to go to the University of Munich and leave copies in the main building.

ALEXANDRA LLOYD: And it was decided that Hans and Sophie would be the ones that would do this.

CRISTINA KIM: They had to time it correctly when all the students and professors were in class so that no one saw them.

ALEXANDRA LLOYD: So the night before they're going to do this incredible thing, at home in the flat that they share, Sophie writes a letter to her friend.

[ARCHIVE CLIP, Sophie Scholl (voice actor): Dear Lisa, I've just been playing the "Trout Quintet" on the phonograph.]

ALEXANDRA LLOYD: And she describes listening to Schubert's "Trout Quintet" on the gramophone.

[ARCHIVE CLIP, Sophie Scholl (voice actor): In that piece of Schubert's, you can positively feel and smell the breezes and scents, and hear the birds and the whole of creation cry out for joy. And when the piano repeats the theme, like cool, clear, sparkling water, oh, it's sheer enchantment!]

ALEXANDRA LLOYD: You would never dream from reading this letter what is going to happen the next morning.

CRISTINA KIM: The next morning ...

ALEXANDRA LLOYD: On Thursday, the 18 of February, 1943 ...

CRISTINA KIM: At about half past ten ...

ALEXANDRA LLOYD: ... Hans and Sophie left their flat.

CRISTINA KIM: They walked to the university.

ALEXANDRA LLOYD: They had with them a suitcase and a briefcase that were full of copies of the pamphlet.

CRISTINA KIM: Their plan was to discreetly deposit the pamphlets all over campus and get away undetected.

ALEXANDRA LLOYD: So they work really quickly, they follow the plan, they leave copies of the pamphlets.

CRISTINA KIM: But just before they leave ...

ALEXANDRA LLOYD: Sophie, for whatever reason, decides to push one of these piles of pamphlets over the balcony, and they cascade down.

CRISTINA KIM: A janitor sees Sophie do this and accosts her and her brother Hans.

ALEXANDRA LLOYD: They call the Gestapo, who turn up, arrest Hans and Sophie and take them into Gestapo custody. That's Thursday. On Monday, they're sent to trial ...

CRISTINA KIM: They're tried for treason.

ALEXANDRA LLOYD: For undermining the war effort with these pamphlets.

CRISTINA KIM: The trial starts in the morning on Monday and ends around lunchtime.

ALEXANDRA LLOYD: At four o'clock, three hours later, they're told that they're going to be executed that day at five.

CRISTINA KIM: At 5:00 pm on February 22, 1943 ...

ALEXANDRA LLOYD: Sophie Scholl, Hans Scholl are executed by guillotine for their involvement in the White Rose.

ALEXANDRA LLOYD: The White Rose wanted the war to end, and it didn't. They wanted Hitler and his regime to fall, and it didn't. I mean, it would take another two years after they were executed. But it matters that they tried. It matters that they made the attempt. And I think that, today, is inspiring.

CRISTINA KIM: Sophie Scholl and the other core members of the White Rose paid the ultimate price for standing up to their tyrannical government. They were executed, but their pamphlets and their ideas lived on.

ALEXANDRA LLOYD: The sixth pamphlet was, in fact, smuggled out of Germany and made its way to Britain, where copies were produced, and then they were dropped by planes over Germany. So that image of Sophie scattering the pamphlets over the balcony is then somehow reproduced over the whole of Germany as these pamphlets rain down from planes over all the people.

CRISTINA KIM: Almost immediately after the fall of Hitler, the White Rose was remembered and commemorated with monuments, street names, and even stamps bearing Sophie and Hans' likenesses. Today, the courtyard outside the main building at the University of Munich bears their last name, and bronze versions of the flyers are embedded in the cobblestones.

[ARCHIVE CLIP, Sophie Scholl (voice actor): You can't help rejoicing and laughing, however moved or sad at heart you feel, when you see the springtime clouds in the sky and the budding branches sway, stirred by the wind and the bright young sunlight. I am so much looking forward to the spring again.]

LATIF: Okay, we're gonna take a quick break, and when we come back, a second story of dissent from our friends at NPR's Throughline.

LULU: I'm Lulu Miller.

LATIF: I'm Latif Nasser.

LULU: We are back, playing you all an excerpt of this show we admire, Throughline. It's hosted by Rund Abdelfatah and Ramtin Arablouei.

LATIF: Right before the break, we did part one of their episode, and this is part two.

ANNOUNCER: Part Two: No Country for Young Men.

RAMTIN ARABLOUEI: On April 3, 1968, a man sits in his motel room collecting his thoughts. He reaches down and grabs a cigarette, puts it to his lips, lights it up and inhales.

JONATHAN EIG: And he's exhausted. He's depressed.

RAMTIN ARABLOUEI: But he still has a job to do.

JONATHAN EIG: He was supposed to speak to a rally.

RAMTIN ARABLOUEI: A rally in Memphis, Tennessee.

JONATHAN EIG: He said he didn't want to go because he wasn't feeling well.

RAMTIN ARABLOUEI: He's too tired, and so he asks someone else to take his place on stage that night. He gets into his pajamas and heads to bed.

[phone rings]

RAMTIN ARABLOUEI: Then his phone rings.

[phone rings]

RAMTIN ARABLOUEI: It's the guy who went to give the speech in his place.

[phone rings]

JONATHAN EIG: He called him from the hall and said, "These people don't want me. They want you."

RAMTIN ARABLOUEI: The tired man puts down the phone and makes up his mind. He was going to go.

JONATHAN EIG: He was in bed in his pajamas at that point, but he got dressed and went over there and gave this incredible speech.

[ARCHIVE CLIP, Martin Luther King, Jr.: Thank you very kindly, my friends. As I listened to Ralph Abernathy and his eloquent and generous introduction and then thought about myself, I wondered who he was talking about.]

[audience laughs]

JONATHAN EIG: And many people feel like he was predicting his own death that night when he gave that speech.

[ARCHIVE CLIP, Martin Luther King, Jr.: Well, I don't know what will happen now. We've got some difficult days ahead, but it really doesn't matter with me now.]

JONATHAN EIG: He even says yeah, like anyone else, I'd like to live a long life, but that doesn't matter anymore.

[ARCHIVE CLIP, Martin Luther King, Jr.: Longevity has its place, but I'm not concerned about that now.]

JONATHAN EIG: Because I just want to do God's work. I just want to ...

[ARCHIVE CLIP, Martin Luther King, Jr.: I just want to do God's will.]

JONATHAN EIG: ... see this through.

[ARCHIVE CLIP, Martin Luther King, Jr.: And he's allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I've looked over, and I've seen the promised land. I may not get there with you, but I want you to know tonight that we as a people will get to the promised land!]

[applause]

[ARCHIVE CLIP, Martin Luther King, Jr.: So I'm happy tonight. I'm not worried about anything. I'm not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.]

RAMTIN ARABLOUEI: That speech was the last of Martin Luther King Jr.'s career. The next day, at 6:05 pm, he was assassinated by a gunman while standing on the balcony of his motel in Memphis.

RAMTIN ARABLOUEI: Like many Americans, I was raised to believe in a certain version of Martin Luther King Jr. We remember him as a martyr for justice and nonviolence, the eloquent preacher whose prophetic vision redefined how the US viewed itself, a person who was loved by most and hated only by the racist few. But that's just not the entire truth.

JONATHAN EIG: We have all taken him for granted in a way ...

RAMTIN ARABLOUEI: This is Jonathan Eig, author of the biography "King: A Life."

JONATHAN EIG: ... and turned him into a monument and a national holiday, and forgotten about the person.

[ARCHIVE CLIP, producer: Civil Rights, King-Vanocur. Roll 20, sound 36.]

RAMTIN ARABLOUEI: In 1967, 11 months before his assassination, Martin Luther King Jr. gave an interview to NBC News at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, where he was the pastor. The segment was called, "After Civil Rights, Black Power."

[ARCHIVE CLIP, Sander Vanocur: Dr. King, this church is as good a place as any to go back over your commitment to the Civil Rights Movement.]

RAMTIN ARABLOUEI: In the video, Martin Luther King Jr. stands in front of a stained glass with a golden cross in the middle, a crown emerging above it. He was 38 years old at the time, but the look in his eyes belonged to someone much older.

[ARCHIVE CLIP, Martin Luther King, Jr.: Many of the people who supported us in Selma and Birmingham were really outraged about the extremist behavior toward Negroes, but they were not at that moment, and they are not now, committed to genuine equality for Negroes.]

RAMTIN ARABLOUEI: In the interview, King comes across more frustrated than usual, a bit edgier. He is measured in his words, but very confrontational in his criticism of America.

JONATHAN EIG: When King rises to fame, he's mostly talking about Southern segregation, and that's something that a lot of Northern white liberals can stand with him on. But when he starts talking about economic inequality, when he starts talking about white flight in the Northern suburbs and segregation of schools in Chicago and New York and Philadelphia, suddenly people start getting nervous.

[ARCHIVE CLIP, Martin Luther King, Jr.: It's much easier to integrate a lunch counter than it is to guarantee an annual income, for instance, to get rid of poverty for Negroes and all poor people. It's much easier to integrate a bus than it is to make genuine integration a reality and quality education a reality in our schools.]

JONATHAN EIG: He was really determined to make this his big shot across the bow, to declare a new wave of his movement, that he was moving from civil rights to human rights.

[ARCHIVE CLIP, Martin Luther King, Jr.: And I think we are in a new era, a new phase of the struggle, where we have moved from a struggle for decency, which characterized our struggle for 10 or 12 years, to a struggle for genuine equality. And this is where we are getting the resistance because there was never any intention to go this far.]

RAMTIN ARABLOUEI: Martin Luther King Jr. understood that criticizing American capitalism and Northern racism would potentially upset some of the same people who had supported his civil rights efforts in the South. But he still did it. And according to some polls, by 1968, nearly three-fourths of white Americans disapproved of him.

JONATHAN EIG: It's because they were worried that, you know, Black people were coming to the neighborhoods and Black people were coming for their jobs, and that King's idea, his message of equality, might actually be put into action. It's a lot easier to say, "I support Martin Luther King," and even to get on the bus and go down and march with him in Selma, but when you get back and he's actually talking about your hometown fighting to get Black kids enrolled in your kids' all-white suburban school, you know, suddenly it's a different story.

[ARCHIVE CLIP: From late 1963, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was the target of an intensive campaign by the FBI to neutralize him as an effective civil rights leader.]

JONATHAN EIG: The FBI surveillance of King is a hugely important factor in his life, and an important factor in his legacy.

[ARCHIVE CLIP: Much depends on him still, in these times when racial tensions have created an atmosphere of fear and foreboding among many Negroes and whites alike.]

RAMTIN ARABLOUEI: The FBI had a years-long effort to monitor Martin Luther King Jr. and to use the information they gathered to publicly discredit him. This is a reading from the actual FBI files.

[ARCHIVE CLIP: It is King's contention that the government of the United States does not move until it is confronted dramatically.]

JONATHAN EIG: Robert F. Kennedy, the Attorney General, authorizes the FBI to surveil King, to tap phones, because they initially fear that he may be under the influence of members of the Communist Party or former members of the Communist Party.

RAMTIN ARABLOUEI: They continue to monitor Martin Luther King Jr.'s every move.

JONATHAN EIG: Right after the March on Washington, "I Have A Dream," his most brilliant and memorable speech.

RAMTIN ARABLOUEI: Just two days after ...

JONATHAN EIG: The FBI produces a memo that says, given the power of that speech, we must now view him as the most dangerous man when it comes to race in America.

RAMTIN ARABLOUEI: But it's not just his stance on race they're worried about.

[ARCHIVE CLIP, Martin Luther King, Jr.: I come to this magnificent house of worship tonight because my conscience leaves me no other choice. A time comes when silence is betrayal, and that time has come for us in relation to Vietnam.]

[ARCHIVE CLIP: King spoke at the Riverside Church in New York, New York, at which time he was highly critical of the Vietnam War.]

[ARCHIVE CLIP, Martin Luther King, Jr.: Some of us who have already begun to break the silence of the night have found that the calling to speak is often a vocation of agony. But we must speak.]

[ARCHIVE CLIP: He referred to the United States government as "the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today."]

[ARCHIVE CLIP, Martin Luther King, Jr.: I speak for the poor of America, who are paying the double price of smashed hopes at home and death and corruption in Vietnam. I speak as a citizen of the world, for the world as it stands aghast at the path we have taken. I speak as one who loves America. The great initiative in this war is ours. The initiative to stop it must be ours.]

RAMTIN ARABLOUEI: The speech was called "Beyond Vietnam: A Time To Break Silence." He gave that speech in 1967, right in the middle of the Vietnam War.

JONATHAN EIG: It's just stunning in its beauty and its foresight, and yet the response to it is brutal. King is pilloried for this speech. The next day, the Washington Post, the New York Times, almost every major newspaper in America calls him out and says he's a fool, says he's unqualified to speak on these issues.

RAMTIN ARABLOUEI: He was shocked by just how harsh the response was to the speech.

JONATHAN EIG: He's devastated by this. You know, he feels like he can't understand why he's being treated this way. He sees himself as doing the right thing, and he's getting beat up for it. And it has a personal toll. It really leaves him feeling frustrated, sad. I think some of his friends are worried that he's clinically depressed at this point.

RAMTIN ARABLOUEI: FBI wiretaps captured conversations King had with his friends and colleagues in the days after the speech.

JONATHAN EIG: There's one phone call right after "Beyond Vietnam," and he's on the phone with Stan Levison, who's one of his best friends and closest advisers, and he's known him for a decade. And Levison calls him and says, "That was a terrible speech. I don't understand why you said those things. That's gonna hurt us. That's going to damage our cause."

RAMTIN ARABLOUEI: Part of that cause was the Poor People's March, an action in which King, Levison, Bayard Rustin and other leaders were trying to organize thousands of people to march to Washington and stage a sit-in to demand more progressive economic policies for the poor and working class. Levison feared King's stance on Vietnam would alienate some of their financial supporters.

JONATHAN EIG: It's going to damage our fundraising. And King says to one of his best friends, in essence, don't you know who I am? Haven't you been listening to anything I've said? Yeah, it might have been politically unwise, but I don't care about that because it was not morally unwise.

RAMTIN ARABLOUEI: They were both right. The fallout from King's stand on Vietnam was harsh. The director of the NAACP criticized him, saying that the racial justice and anti-war efforts have, quote, "too little in common," and that King should, quote, "positively and publicly give up one role or the other." When King tried to get the NAACP to put out a statement against the war, it was strongly rejected. An editorial in The Washington Post said that he had, quote, "diminished his usefulness to his cause, to his country and to his people." And all of this had a material impact on King's work. The Poor People's March was foundering, struggling to find supporters.

JONATHAN EIG: He could have just stepped back and said, "Okay, I did this for 10, 12 years. Now it's someone else's turn." But he had such conviction, such a belief in doing the right thing that that never even occurred to him.

RAMTIN ARABLOUEI: And according to Jonathan, even though that conviction cost King popularity and frustrated some of his own friends and fellow civil rights activists, it did actually make a difference for the anti-war movement.

JONATHAN EIG: I think King's early opposition to the Vietnam War was a huge factor in galvanizing especially, you know, white college students. They saw King speaking out on this, and they began to ask more questions. They began to think more about what they believed. And his courage to speak out on that had huge, positive consequences.

RAMTIN ARABLOUEI: That last night in Memphis, almost exactly one year after his "Beyond Vietnam" speech, Martin Luther King was under immense pressure. He was paying a price for speaking his conscience, for speaking words some of his friends, comrades and the American people were not ready to hear. And this image, the rebel shunned by much of America, is not the image we celebrate every year. I asked Jonathan why.

JONATHAN EIG: Well, that's easy. Because it makes us uncomfortable. We stick with the stuff that makes us comfortable. I have a dream that we might all be brothers and sisters and sing in harmony, and judge each other by the content of our character and not the color of our skin. That stuff's easy. That's safe. As Harry Belafonte said to me, "This country only likes dead radicals."

LULU: All right. Now there is a third story in this episode that's equally great, but we're not gonna play it. You—to hear it, go check it out on their feed. Go on over to Throughline to hear the third story in this beautiful episode.

LATIF: And while you're there, go listen to another episode about the history of Radiohead, or the history of tipping, or the history of any number of random things.

LULU: What's that—what's that Sea People one called? That one's really fun. Hold on, let's tell them that name. Um ...

LATIF: Armageddon or something?

LULU: What—it's called, "What Happened After Civilization Collapsed."

LATIF: Yeah.

LULU: That's a great one.

LATIF: Go find them, Throughline, wherever you get your podcasts.

LULU: I'm Lulu Miller.

LATIF: I'm Latif Nasser.

RUND ABDELFATAH: I'm Rund Abdelfatah.

RAMTIN ARABLOUEI: I'm Ramtin Arablouei. And you've been listening to Throughline from NPR.

RUND ABDELFATAH: This episode was produced by me ...

RAMTIN ARABLOUEI: And me and ...

LAWRENCE WU: Lawrence Wu.

JULIE CAINE: Julie Caine.

 ANYA STEINBERG: Anya Steinberg.

CASEY MINER: Casey Miner.

CRISTINA KIM: Cristina Kim.

DEVIN KATAYAMA: Devin Katayama.

PETER BALONON-ROSEN: Peter Balonon-Rosen.

THOMAS LU: Thomas Lu.

IRENE NOGUCHI: Irene Noguchi.

RAMTIN ARABLOUEI: Fact-checking for this episode was done by Kevin Volkl. Thanks also to Amelie Klaus, Nicolas Becker, Ella L'Chaim, Casey Miner and Johannes Doerge for their voiceover work. And thanks to Collin Campbell and Anya Grundmann. The episode was mixed by Josh Newell.

RUND ABDELFATAH: Music for this episode was composed by Ramtin and his band, Drop Electric, which includes ...

NAVID MARVI: Navid Marvi.

SHO FUJIWARA: Sho Fujiwara.

ANYA MIZANI: Anya Mizani.

RAMTIN ARABLOUEI: And finally, if you have an idea or like something you heard on the show, please write us at throughline@npr.org.

RUND ABDELFATAH: Thanks for listening.

[LISTENER: Hi, this is Jeremiah Barba, and I'm calling from San Francisco, California. Leadership support for Radiolab's science programming is provided by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, Science Sandbox, a Simons Foundation initiative, and the John Templeton Foundation. Foundational support for Radiolab was provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.]

 

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