June 11, 1963, Saigon, Vietnam,
Photo by Malcom Browne AP

After four years of increased opposition by the Diem government towards Buddhist priests, 67 year 
old Thich Quang Duc immolates himself to highlight Buddhist demands for religious equality. The 
photograph appeared around the world and changed public sentiment towards the Diem government. In 
1964 Malcolm Browne and David Halberstam won the Pulitzer prize for their individual reporting of 
the Viet Nam war and the overthrow of the Diem regime.

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June 11, 1963, Thich Quang Duc, a Buddhist monk from Vietnam, burned himself to death at a busy 
intersection in downtown Saigon to bring attention to the repressive policies of the Catholic Diem 
regime that controlled the South Vietnamese government at the time. Buddhist monks asked the regime 
to lift its ban on flying the traditional Buddhist flag, to grant Buddhism the same rights as Catholicism, 
to stop detaining Buddhists and to give Buddhist monks and nuns the right to practice and spread their 
religion.

While burning Thich Quang Duc never moved a muscle.