There are figures we celebrate in American history whose full story is often omitted. We celebrate Helen Keller for learning to read and write despite being blind and deaf. We applaud the fact that she was the first deaf-blind person to receive a Bachelor’s degree. We celebrate Martin Luther King Jr. and his push of desegregation and racial justice. We highlight his I have a dream speech, but other details concerning his and Keller’s views are often omitted in classrooms across the country.

There is a lot of focus on MLK Jr. and his push for racial equality. MLK has become such an iconic figure that Individuals who attempt to criticize him look foolish for doing so. There is far less focus on his criticism of the Vietnam War. It seems like this could purposefully be orchestrated. A lot of high school history classes shy away from the Vietnam War because it makes the United States look bad.  MLK spoke out against Vietnam saying,

“Perhaps a more tragic recognition of reality took place when it became clear to me that the war was doing war more than devastating the hopes for the poor at home. (Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society funding was being cut for the war.) It was sending their sons and their brothers and their husbands to fight and die in extraordinarily high proportions relative to the rest of the population… We have been repeatedly faced with the cruel irony of watching Negro and white boys on TV screens as they kill and die together for a nation that has been unable to seat them together in the same schools. So we watch them with brutal solidarity burning the huts of a poor village, but we realize that we would hardly live on the same block in Chicago.”

MLK like Muhammad Ali understood the blatant hypocrisy in sending young men to die abroad who had been denied basic constitutionally guaranteed rights at home. He went on to explain how promoting violence abroad undermined his push for peace at home. He refers to black men in the North,

“I have told them Molotov cocktails and rifles would not solve their problems.” “What about Vietnam?” They asked if our nation wasn’t using massive doses of violence to solve its problems, to bring about the changes it wanted. Their questions hit home, and I knew that I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed in the ghettos without having first spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today: my own government.” 

King’s anti-Vietnam war views are seldom discussed. The focus is generally on his push for racial justice. Helen Keller not only overcame her blindness and deafness to learn to read and write, but she also was an avid anti-war advocate. 

In one speech against WW1 Helen Keller stated,

“Congress is not preparing to defend the people of the United States. It is planning to protect the capital of American speculators and investors in Mexico, South America, China, and the Philippine Islands. Incidentally this preparation will benefit the manufacturers of munitions and war machines.”

She went on to explain,

“Every Modern War has had its roots in exploitation. The Civil War was fought to decide whether the slaveholders of the South or the capitalists in the north should exploit the West. The Spanish-American War decided that the United States should exploit Cuba and the Philippines. The South African War decided that the British should exploit the diamond mines. The Russo-Japanese war decided that Japan should exploit Korea. The present wars is to decide who shall exploit the Balkans, turkey, Persia, Egypt, India, China, Africa… Now, the workers are not interest in the spoils; they will not get any of them anyway.”

Keller understood the historical pattern of war that required the poor members of a country to go and fight the poor members of other countries for the benefit of the ruling class. She explained the sophistry of the oligarchs,

 “Friends, fellow patriots: your country is in danger! There are foes on all sides… Will you murmur about your low wages when your country, your very liberties are in jeopardy? What are the miseries you endure compared to the humiliation of having a victorious German army sail up the East River? Quit your whining, get busy and prepare to defend your firesides and your flag.” 

She elaborates with the naivety of the workers.

 “Will the workers walk into this trap? Will they be fooled again? I am afraid so. The people have always been amenable to oratory of this sort. The workers know they have no enemies except their masters.”

 She explains that plutocrats know how to persuade the masses of workers to enlist. 

“They know that if the government dresses them up in khaki and gives them a rifle and starts them off with a brass band and waving banners, they will go forth valiantly to fight for their own enemies.” 

She ends the speech by saying, 

“Strike against all ordinances and laws and institutions that continue the slaughter of peace and the butcheries of war. Strike against war, for without you no battles can be fought. Strike against manufacturing shrapnel and gas bombs and all other tools of murder. Strike against preparedness that means death and misery to millions of human beings. Be not dumb, obedient slaves in an army of destruction.

These speeches by MLK and Helen Keller beg the question, Why haven’t most of us learned of these types of speeches? Why are students sheltered from learning objective history. Why is the U.S. put on a pedastal and not analyzed objectively? Students should be taught objective facts concerning war. WW1, Vietnam and Iraq should not be obfuscated. Isn’t it curious that students learn about Huck Finn, but rarely learn that Mark Twain was a leader in the anti-imperialist league? Twain heavily criticized U.S. action in the Spanish-American War and U.S. imperialism abroad. Perhaps those that decide on textbooks are afraid it will delegitimize the moral superiority that many citizens believe the U.S. has. Nonetheless true and meaningful history should be taught.