American Renaissance
Posted on January 19, 2015The Unknown Martin Luther King, Jr.
Benjamin J. Ryan, American Renaissance, January 2009

Martin Luther King Jr.
We reprint our sober assessment of MLK from 2009 because we don’t think it can be significantly improved.

Forty years after his death, the popularity of Martin Luther King remains extraordinary. He is perhaps the single most praised person in American history, and millions adore him as a hero and almost a saint. The federal government has made space available on the Mall in Washington for a national monument for King, not far from Lincoln’s. Only four men in American history have national monuments: Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, Franklin Roosevelt; and now King will make five.

King is the only American who enjoys the nation’s highest honor of having a national holiday on his birthday. There are other days of remembrance such as Presidents’ Day, but no one else but Jesus Christ is recognized with a similar holiday. Does King deserve such honors? Much that has been known to scholars for years–but largely unknown to most Americans–suggests otherwise.

Plagiarism

As a young man, King started plagiarizing the work of others and he continued this practice throughout his career.

At Crozer Theological Seminary in Chester, Pennsylvania, where he received a bachelor of divinity degree in 1951, many of his papers contained material lifted verbatim and without acknowledgement from published sources. An extensive project started at Stanford University in 1984 to publish all of King’s papers tracked down the original sources for these early papers and concluded that his academic writings are “tragically flawed by numerous instances of plagiarism.” Journalist Theodore Pappas, who has also reviewed the collection, found one paper showing “verbatim theft” in 20 of a total of 24 paragraphs. He writes:

“King’s plagiarisms are easy to detect because their style rises above the level of his pedestrian student prose. In general, if the sentences are eloquent, witty, insightful, or pithy, or contain allusions, analogies, metaphors, or similes, it is safe to assume that the section has been purloined.”

King also plagiarized himself, recycling old term papers as new ones. Some of his professors complained about sloppy references, but they seem to have had no idea how extensively he was stealing material, and his habits were well established by the time he entered the PhD program at Boston University. King plagiarized one-third of his 343-page dissertation, the book-length project required to earn a PhD, leading some to say he should be stripped of his doctoral degree. Mr. Pappas explains that King’s plagiarism was a lifelong habit:

“King’s Nobel Prize Lecture was plagiarized extensively from works by Florida minister J. Wallace Hamilton; the sections on Gandhi and nonviolence in his ‘Pilgrimage’ speech were taken virtually verbatim from Harris Wofford’s speech on the same topic; the frequently replayed climax to the ‘I Have a Dream’ speech–the ‘from every mountainside, let freedom ring’ portion–came from a 1952 address to the Republican National Convention by a black preacher named Archibald Carey; and the 1968 sermon in which King prophesied his martyrdom was based on works by J. Wallace Hamilton and Methodist minister Harold Bosley.”

Perhaps King had no choice but to use the words of others. Mr. Pappas has found that on the Graduate Record Exam, King “scored in the second-lowest quartile in English and vocabulary, in the lowest ten percent in quantitative analysis, and in the lowest third on his advanced test in philosophy.”

Adultery

King lived a double life. During the day, he would speak to large crowds, quoting Scripture and invoking God’s will, and at night he frequently had sex with women from the audience. “King’s habits of sexual adventure had been well established by the time he was married,” says Michael Eric Dyson of Georgetown University, a King admirer. He notes that King often “told lewd jokes,” “shared women with friends,” and was “sexually reckless.” According to King biographer Taylor Branch, during a long party on the night of January 6 and 7, 1964, an FBI bugging device recorded King’s “distinctive voice ring out above others with pulsating abandon, saying, “˜I’m f***ing for God!’”

Sex with single and married women continued after King married, and on the night before his death, King had two adulterous trysts. His first rendezvous was at a woman’s house, the second in a hotel room. The source for this was his best friend and second-in-command, Ralph Abernathy, who noted that the second woman was “a member of the Kentucky legislature,” now known to be Georgia Davis Powers.

Abernathy went on to say that a third woman was also looking for King that same night, but found his bed empty. She knew his habits and was angry when they met later that morning. In response, writes Abernathy, King “lost his temper” and “knocked her across the bed. . . . She leapt up to fight back, and for a moment they were engaged in a full-blown fight, with [King] clearly winning.” A few hours later, King ate lunch with Abernathy and discussed the importance of nonviolence for their movement.

To other colleagues, King justified his adultery this way: “I’m away from home twenty-five to twenty-seven days a month. F***ing’s a form of anxiety reduction.” King had many one-night stands but also grew close to one of his girlfriends in a relationship that became, according to Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer David Garrow, “the emotional centerpiece of King’s life.” Still, sex with other women remained “a commonplace of King’s travels.”

In private, King could be extremely crude. On one FBI recording, King said to Abernathy in what was no doubt a teasing remark, “Come on over here, you big black [bleep]***er, and let me suck your d**k.” FBI sources told Taylor Branch about a surveillance tape of King watching a televised rerun of the Kennedy funeral. When he saw the famous moment when Jacqueline Kennedy knelt with her children before her dead husband’s coffin, King reportedly sneered, “Look at her. Sucking him off one last time.”

Despite his obsession with sex and his betrayal of his own wife and children, and despite Christianity’s call for fidelity, King continued to claim the moral authority of a Baptist minister.

Whites

King stated that the “vast majority of white Americans are racist” and that they refused to share power. His solution was to redistribute wealth and power through reparations for slavery and racial quotas:

“No amount of gold could provide an adequate compensation for the exploitation and humiliation of the Negro in America down through the centuries. Not all the wealth of this affluent society could meet the bill. Yet a price can be placed on unpaid wages. . . . The payment should be in the form of a massive program by the government of special, compensatory measures which could be regarded as a settlement.” Continued King, “Moral justification for such measures for Negroes is rooted in the robberies inherent in the institution of slavery.” He named his plan the Bill of Rights for the Disadvantaged. Some poor whites would also receive compensation because they were “derivative victims of slavery,” but the welfare of blacks was his central focus.

King has been praised, even by conservatives, as the great advocate of color-blindness. They focus too narrowly on one sentence in his “I Have a Dream” speech, in which he said he wanted to live in a nation “where [my children] will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.” The truth is that King wanted quotas for blacks. “[I]f a city has a 30 percent Negro population,” King reasoned, “then it is logical to assume that Negroes should have at least 30 percent of the jobs in any particular company, and jobs in all categories rather than only in menial areas.”

One of King’s greatest achievements is said to have been passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. At the signing ceremony on July 2, he stood directly behind President Lyndon Johnson as a key guest. The federal agency created by the act, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, now monitors hiring practices and ensures that King’s desires for racial preferences are met.

Like liberals today, King denied racial differences. In a reply to an interviewer who told him many Southern whites thought racial differences were a biological fact, he replied:

“This utterly ignorant fallacy has been so thoroughly refuted by the social scientists, as well as by medical science, that any individual who goes on believing it is standing in an absolutely misguided and diminishing circle. The American Anthropological Association has unanimously adopted a resolution repudiating statements that Negroes are biologically, in innate mental ability or in any other way inferior to whites.”

The conclusions to be drawn from his belief in across-the-board equality were clear: failure by blacks to achieve at the level of whites could be explained only by white oppression. As King explained in one interview, “I think we have to honestly admit that the problems in the world today, as they relate to the question of race, must be blamed on the whole doctrine of white supremacy, the whole doctrine of racism, and these doctrines came into being through the white race and the exploitation of the colored peoples of the world.” King predicted that “if the white world” does not stop this racism and oppression, “then we can end up in the world with a kind of race war.”

Communism

In his public speeches, King never called himself a communist, instead claiming to stand for a synthesis of capitalism and communism: “[C]apitalism fails to realize that life is social. Communism fails to realize that life is individual. Truth is found neither in the rugged individualism of capitalism nor in the impersonal collectivism of communism. The Kingdom of God is found in a synthesis that combines the truths of these two opposites.”

However, David Garrow found that in private King “made it clear to close friends that economically speaking he considered himself what he termed a Marxist.” Mr. Garrow passes along an account of a conversation C.L.R. James, a Marxist intellectual, had with King: “King leaned over to me saying, ‘I don’t say such things from the pulpit, James, but that is what I really believe.’. . . King wanted me to know that he understood and accepted, and in fact agreed with, the ideas that I was putting forward–ideas which were fundamentally Marxist-Leninist. . . . I saw him as a man whose ideas were as advanced as any of us on the Left, but who, as he actually said to me, could not say such things from the pulpit. . . . King was a man with clear ideas, but whose position as a churchman, etc. imposed on him the necessity of reserve.” J. Pius Barbour, a close friend of King’s at seminary, agreed that he “was economically a Marxist.”

Some of King’s most influential advisors were Communists with direct ties to the Soviet Union. One was Stanley Levison, whom Mr. Garrow called King’s “most important political counselor” and “at Martin Luther King’s elbow.” He organized fundraisers for King, counseled him on tax issues and political strategy, wrote fundraising letters and his United Packinghouse Workers Convention speech, edited parts of his books, advised him on his first major national address, and prepped King for questions from the media. Coretta Scott King said of Levison that he was “[a]lways working in the background, his contribution has been indispensable,” and Mr. Garrow says the association with Levison was “without a doubt King’s closest friendship with a white person.”

What were Levison’s political views? John Barron is the author of Operation SOLO, which is about “the most vital intelligence operation the FBI ever had sustained against the Soviet Union.” Part of its work was to track Levison who, according to Mr. Barron, “gained admission into the inner circle of the communist underground” in the US. Mr. Garrow, a strong defender of King, admits that Levison was “one of the two top financiers” of the Communist Party of the United States (CPUSA), which received about one million dollars a year from the Soviet Union. Mr. Garrow found that Levison was “directly involved in the Communist Party’s most sensitive financial dealings,” and acknowledged there was first-hand evidence of Levison’s “financial link to the Soviet Union.”

Hunter Pitts O’Dell, who was elected in 1959 to the national committee, the governing body for the CPUSA, was another party member who worked for King. According to FBI reports, Levison installed O’Dell as the head of King’s New York office, and later recommended that O’Dell be made King’s executive assistant in Atlanta.

King knew his associates were Communists. President Kennedy himself gave an “explicit personal order” to King advising against his “shocking association with Stanley Levison.” Once when he was walking privately with King in the White House Rose Garden, Kennedy also named O’Dell and said to King: “They’re Communists. You’ve got to get rid of them.”

The Communist connections help explain why Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy authorized the FBI to wiretap King’s home and office telephones in October 1963. Kennedy, like his brother John, was deeply sympathetic to King but also aware of the threat of communism.

Mr. Garrow tried to exonerate King of the charge of being a fellow traveler by arguing that Levison broke with the CPUSA while he worked for King, that is, from the time he met King in the summer of 1956 until King’s death in 1968. However, as historian Samuel Francis has pointed out, an official break with the CPUSA does not necessarily mean a break with the goals of communism or with the Soviet Union.

John Barron argues that if Levison had defected from the CPUSA and renounced communism, he would not have associated with former comrades, such as CP officials Lem Harris, Hunter Pitts O’Dell, and Roy Bennett (Levison’s twin brother who had changed his last name). He was also close to the highly placed KGB officer Victor Lessiovsky, who was an assistant to the head of the United Nations, U Thant.

Mr. Barron asks why Lessiovsky would “fritter away his time and risk his career . . . by repeatedly indulging himself in idle lunches or amusing cocktail conversation with an undistinguished lawyer [Levison] . . . who had nothing to offer the KGB, or with someone who had deserted the party and its discipline, or with someone about whom the KGB knew nothing? . . . And why would an ordinary American lawyer . . . meet, again and again, with a Soviet assistant to the boss of the United Nations?”

Other Communists who worked with King included Aubrey Williams, James Dombrowski, Carl Braden, William Melish, Ella J. Baker, Bayard Rustin, and Benjamin Smith. King also “associated and cooperated with a number of groups known to be CPUSA front organizations or to be heavily penetrated and influenced by members of the Communist Party–for example, the Southern Conference Educational Fund; Committee to Secure Justice for Morton Sobell; the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America; the National Lawyers Guild; and the Highlander Folk School.

The CPUSA clearly tried to influence King and his movement. An FBI report of May 6, 1960 from Jack Childs, one of the FBI’s most accomplished spies and a winner of the Presidential Medal of Freedom for Intelligence, said that the CP “feels that it is definitely to the Party’s advantage to assign outstanding Party members to work with the [Martin] Luther King group. CP policy at the moment is to concentrate upon Martin Luther King.”

As Republican Senator Jesse Helms of North Carolina concluded in a Senate speech written by Francis, King’s alliance with Communists was evidence of “identified Communists . . . planning the influencing and manipulation of King for their own purposes.” At the same time, King relied on them for speech writing, fundraising, and raising public awareness. They, in turn, used his stature and fame to their own benefit. Senator Helms cited Congressman John M. Ashbrook, a ranking member of the House Committee on Un-American Activities, who said: “King has consistently worked with Communists and has helped give them a respectability they do not deserve. I believe he has done more for the Communist Party than any other person of this decade.”

Christianity

King strongly doubted several core beliefs of Christianity. “I was ordained to the Christian ministry,” he claimed, but Stanford University’s online repository includes King’s seminary writings in which he disputed the full divinity of Jesus, the Virgin Birth, and the Resurrection, suggesting that we “strip them of their literal interpretation.”

Regarding the divine nature of Jesus, King wrote that Jesus was godlike, but not God. People called Jesus divine because they “found God in him” like a divinely inspired teacher, not because he literally was God, as Jesus himself claimed. On the Virgin Birth, King wrote:

“First we must admit that the evidence for the tenability of this doctrine is to [sic] shallow to convince any objective thinker. How then did this doctrine arise? A clue to this inquiry may be found in a sentence from St. Justin’s First Apology. Here Justin states that the birth of Jesus is quite similar to the birth of the sons of Zeus. It was believed in Greek thought that an extraordinary person could only be explained by saying that he had a father who was more than human. It is probable that this Greek idea influenced Christian thought.”

Concerning the Resurrection, King wrote: “In fact the external evidence for the authenticity of this doctrine is found wanting.” The early church, he says, formulated this doctrine because it “had been captivated by the magnetic power of his [Jesus’] personality. This basic experience led to the faith that he could never die. And so in the pre-scientific thought pattern of the first century, this inner faith took outward form.” Thus, in this view, Jesus’ body never rose from the dead, even though according to Scripture, “And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile.”

Two other essays show how King watered down Christianity. In one, he wrote that contemporary mystery religions influenced New Testament writers: “[A]fter being in contact with these surrounding religions and hearing certain doctrines expressed, it was only natural for some of these views to become part of their subconscious minds. . . . That Christianity did copy and borrow from Mithraism cannot be denied, but it was generally a natural and unconscious process rather than a deliberate plan of action.” In another essay, King wrote that liberal theology “was an attempt to bring religion up intellectually,” and the introduction to the paper at the Stanford website says that King was “scornful of fundamentalism.” King wrote that in fundamentalism the Trinity, the Atonement, and the Second Coming are “quite prominent,” but again, these are defining beliefs of Christianity.

Known and unknown

King is both known and unknown. Millions worldwide see him as a moral messiah, and American schools teach young children to praise him. In the United States there are no fewer than 777 streets named for him. But King is also unknown because only a few people are aware of the unsavory aspects of his life. The image most people have of King is therefore cropped and incomplete.

In the minds of many, King towers above other Americans as a distinguished orator and writer, but this short, 5″6′ man often stole the words of others. People believe he was a Christian, but he doubted some of the fundamentals of the faith. Our country honors King, but he worked closely with Communists who aimed to destroy it. He denied racial differences, but fought for racial favoritism in the form of quotas. He claimed to be for freedom, but he wanted to force people to associate with each other and he promoted the redistribution of wealth in the form of reparations for slavery. He quoted the ringing words of the Bible and claimed, as a preacher, to be striving to be more like Jesus, but his colleagues knew better.

Perhaps he, too, knew better. His closest political advisor, Stanley Levison, said King was “an intensely guilt-ridden man” and his wife Coretta also called him “a guilt-ridden man.” Levison said that the praise heaped upon King was “a continual series of blows to his conscience” because he was such a humble man. If King was guilt-ridden might it have been because he knew better than anyone the wide gap between his popular image and his true character?

The FBI surveillance files could throw considerable light on his true character, but they will not be made public until 2027. On January 31, 1977, as a result of lawsuits by King’s allies against the FBI, a US district judge ordered the files sealed for 50 years. There are reportedly 56 feet of records–tapes, transcripts, and logs–in the custody of the National Archives and Record Service.

Meanwhile, for those who seek to know the real identity of this nearly untouchable icon, there is still plenty of evidence with which to answer the question: Was Martin Luther King, Jr. America’s best and greatest man?

KCMO had a MLK street somewhere, but the dipshats that be decided it weren't a grand enough thoroughfare.

So, they up and renamed onea the most established Boulevards, Paseo, which travels for miles as a residential and commercial street, through the center of the city, MLK Blvd.

Overnight, property values on thousands of properties plummeted, and businesses lost their customers, as nobody was gonna buy a house or property on MLK Blvd., nor patronize a business with that address.

In a world-record setting two months, an election was held and voters told the City Council to go back to the old name.

Most MLK streets are in colored neighborhoods

I know nothing about his alleged adultery and the other areas of critique - but I do know about the plagiarism from those who had to deal with it at Crozer T.S. That seminary was in my home town and I knew folks there.

I knew a retired FBI officer who had served on MLKs security detail for an extended period.

The stories that he could tell. I can confirm some of the info in R whites post. These were well known and common knowledge among those around King .

The passing of time allows common men to become giants in the eyes of worshipers. Those of us who lived during those years know the truth.

In Lubbock they renamed Quirt ave.MLK.

Guess where it is located.

There is nothing new in this post,been known for a long time.

The only folks that did not know are those that did not want to know.

The segment of society that irregardless of what MLKjr did in his real life will always revere and idolize him is the same segment of society that we’re fighting today along with their offspring.

I’ve been to a lot of scenes and tended to a lot of “victims” on multiple MLKjr Boulevards in multiple jurisdictions. It never made sense to me that a man whom many loved for his “non-violent” approach has his name name plastered on the most violent street in every city across this country.

I’ve never been a fan of him nor I have I given him much thought, but then again I don’t live a very “United Colors of Benetton” life. My circle has always been pretty tight and all us straight, white guys look pretty much the same.....I don’t think that’ll change soon.

Is this behavior significantly different than most Christians? Is he still saved, or how does that work?

King is no different from the halfrican we just endured for eight years who is loved by guilty feeling, mentally disturbed white democrats. Hussein will go down in history as the worst President ever. Jimmy Carter's sigh of relief . . . "whew!" . . . can be heard around the world. King's plagiarism can be explained and was overlooked by the seeds of affirmative action which were beginning to germinate . . . his adultery by the very inbred nature and culture of the African savages brought to these shores . . . his Communist leanings by his association with other communists infiltrating the higher education circles in this country. There is still a huge divide amongst Americans over their love or indifference toward King. Too bad we can't all just be Americans, with no hyphenation to that name.

jesse jackson , al sharpton , MLK peas in a pod except king gat shat ..

The article is a load of racist garbage written by white supremacists. The following paragraph should be a dead give away

Like liberals today, King denied racial differences. In a reply to an interviewer who told him many Southern whites thought racial differences were a biological fact, he replied:

“This utterly ignorant fallacy has been so thoroughly refuted by the social scientists, as well as by medical science, that any individual who goes on believing it is standing in an absolutely misguided and diminishing circle. The American Anthropological Association has unanimously adopted a resolution repudiating statements that Negroes are biologically, in innate mental ability or in any other way inferior to whites.”

The conclusions to be drawn from his belief in across-the-board equality were clear: failure by blacks to achieve at the level of whites could be explained only by white oppression. As King explained in one interview, “I think we have to honestly admit that the problems in the world today, as they relate to the question of race, must be blamed on the whole doctrine of white supremacy, the whole doctrine of racism, and these doctrines came into being through the white race and the exploitation of the colored peoples of the world.” King predicted that “if the white world” does not stop this racism and oppression, “then we can end up in the world with a kind of race war.”

Screaming groupies with 60s nerd glasses, pulling their own hair out, fainting, throwing themselves at mlk’s feet, crying on his shoes


Hard to get my mind around that.

MLK's "security detail??"

Think about that for just a moment. SInce when does the FBI provide "security" for anyone?

They spied on him, harassed him, and tried to discredit him. Funny how all of the freedom-loving patriots for smaller federal government seem to gloss over that fact. Does it bother anyone else that some of the stuff in the OP came from illegal surveillance of a US citizen? Overseen by J Edgar Hoover himself, a real paragon of virtue and freedom.

The mob killed both Kennedy's, and they killed MLK.

They were all in bed together and thought it cute to not play by the rules. Even MLK's family doesn't believe Ray Earl killed him.

Those documents all stay under wraps for one reason. The government doesn't want to admit that a bunch of greasers were able to pull it off.

MLK's assassin's name was James Earl Ray, the alias he gave when arrested was Eric Stavros Galt.

His popularity was fading for quite some time before he assumed room temperature- - - - -supporting a trash collectors' strike in Memphis and staying in a fleabag hotel there was a big comedown from the high point of his activism and the huge crowds he could attract in his heyday. He had a harem of nubile groupies who traveled around with him, and he did his best to keep all of them serviced regularly. If he hadn't been killed, he would have ended up as much of an irrelevant clown as Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, Farrakhan, and a bunch of other race-baiting rabble rousers. Once he was gone, his family turned weeping victimhood into a cottage industry, and Coretta and his kids wound up squabbling over who got the biggest slice of the pie.
Jerry

MLK was everything that post said he was............and more. Just as the "good name" of such Negro leaders like Jackson and Sharpton are never brought into question, it's the same with King. People want to believe that a Negro preacher, a supposed good Christian man, would not be a womanizer and everything he's been accused of. Those people have not spent much time around the Negroes, and are as ignorant about it as they are about most things.

Bryant, the best Black man I ever knew, who used to help me on the farm, once told me that Black preachers got more puzzy than anyone else. He was a deacon in his church, and I suspect he knew exactly what he was talking about.

Good post.

Regardless of his personal beliefs and the accuracy or inaccuracy of MLK's reply regarding racial differences. you are wrong in stating that the article is a "load of racist garbage written by white supremacists". It is very well substantiated, and seems a sad picture. Sometimes the truth is too big for some folks to to swallow.

It is all a load of schit. No one lives it or follows it.

All things considered, MLK did a lot of good (and I'm not disputing the article one bit).

But his total deification is over the top, IMHO. There were a lot of other civil rights leaders who did as much. Roy Wilkins comes to mind.

I don't think there should be a special MLK day. Let's go back to Washington's and Lincoln's birthdays instead of "President's Day." We could have a "Civil Rights Leader's Day."

Only one civil rights leader had a strong enough following to gain the attention of the POTUS.

People can try to minimize that but facts are facts.

Wow! He lied, cheated on his wife, was an enemy of the state, and wasn't Christian enough. Sounds alot like Donald Trump! BTW, I like the president. It is amazing that the same formula exists to take down people with whom you disagree as it did more than 50 years ago. Seriously, though MLK was a public figure and all of his alleged faults are on display for us to judge. Was he a perfect man? No, he was not. None of us are perfect. Most of us have the luxury to hide behind our keyboard and disparage someone else. History has made him more prominent. He was a young man who died in what should have been the prime of his life. Even if you don't like these things written about him, can you really hate his mark on History? In the next 50 years we will know even less about the man. He will be remembered most for his, "I have a dream" speech. If you only judged him on that speech, would you still feel the same? My point is... you can build a case to make anyone look like a monster or a saint. So is the author really mad at MLK or something else?

Even if you are correct that a person can build a case to such ends, the opportunity to do so does not at all mean that the author is presenting anything other than fact - or that the author must be "really mad at MLK or something else". Truthful facts can be very difficult to swallow.and can cause societall indigestion.

I really don't think he did the country any good.
He could have led a repatriation movement.

Yeah well, you probably never been denied service either.

I just don't think it's very realistic to complain when you are in a minority. Want a society built to fit your culture? Be in the majority.

Nobody goes to Nigeria and complains about how difficult it is to find a Shakespeare fest.

Diversity has been a disaster by nearly every measure for whites AND blacks.

Like it or not, MLK is the "face" of trying to create racial harmony in this country. If you don't like racial harmony then you would most likely find a way to destroy its base. Nothing hard to swallow here.

Ideologues do not like inconvenient truths. This case certainly is not a matter of like, or dislike, for me - it is what it is, and if a bunch of folks see MLK as the "face of trying to create racial harmony in this country" - .that would be an understandable and acceptable factor.

Racial harmony is quite desirable to me, and has been since a kid growing up in a very ethnically diverse eastern US city. And, most of my career has been spent working to bring people together harmoniously to achieve excellent goals. Through all of that, i have learned a lot about human behavior, and about how some folks do not want to see/hear/accept some truths.

BTW, I would take issue with your phrase "create racial harmony". Creation means to make something from nothing - and our racial conditions today surely are not nothing. Such harmony cannot be "created" by eternal means and efforts - it cannot be forced or made. Harmony in personal and ethnic relationships springs from within people - it is not manufactured. That article is substantially accurate - it is about a person - not an endeavor.

More than anything else, his assassination seems to be what elevated him to national martyr and hero status.

If it had not happened or he had survived and resumed his work he likely wouldn't have become nearly as big of a deal as he has.

Chris Rock in Bring on the Pain 20 years ago said that ~ in every city, Martin Luther King Boulevard is where the crime is"~

In Seattle it is called Martin Luther King Way. It used to be Empire Way.

20 years later, a Seattle crime heat map is still centered on that street.


Crime probability is driven by low IQ and high male hormone.
Low IQ can be induced with alcohol, drugs, mental illness, or inherited from dumb parents.

The Bible is full of painfully flawed characters, Noah, Moses, Jacob, David, Solomon, Paul, etc. etc., that were used by God to accomplish His will by doing great things despite their significant failings. There's a reason their whole stories are told, not just the good parts. No doubt many, maybe all the allegations in that piece are true. It doesn't change the fact that he was able to organize the movement that began the ending of a shameful situation in this country. That's what matters, not how many women he boinked over the years. Anyone that considers the racial situation in this country when King began his crusade as acceptable has serious moral issues of their own.

And what kind of idiot complains about another holiday?

How did this particular minority get here again, I forget? Did they swim the Rio Grande or do it the right way, through Ellis Island?

Oh, that's right, they came over on those luxury liners.

They aren't helpless now.
The Moors left Spain after 400 years, so it is possible.

Not my point at all. I agree that people who come here voluntarily should stfu and assimilate, and if they don't like it, turn around and go back. There's a little more to the story here though, and your analogy of "people going to Nigeria" doesn't fit.

Here's a question for you though. If you were a black man in that era, would you have thought everything was just great, and been happy with Jim Crow? Or would you have tried to do something about it.

In an era of race riots, Huey Newton, and the black panthers King preached non-violence and civil disobedience, and was called uncle Tom for it.

Whether he should have a holiday while Washington and Jefferson don't is a different question.

I get tired of seeing pictures of the MFer all over the place!

He is a white supremacist writing an article for a white supremacist media outlet. Google American Renaissance.

This post is ridiculous. What agenda are you pushing that would make your want to tear down a dead person who accomplished what MLK did? I hope you are not one of those people offended by the attacks on our other historical figures (George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Christopher Columbus, etc.) because you are doing the same thing.

If you made it all the way through that, you've got more intestinal fortitude than I do.

Did the writer manage to work Boyd's Mud People in?

Some folks can't handle the truth, as they are heavily invested (emotionally) in the reigning narrative.

Other folks grow up and realize that the myths of both Santa Claus and MLKjr are a charming tales for children.

How about Thomas Jefferson and Christopher Columbus? Are those myths that we should tear down too? People are multifaceted. Even the most accomplished and inspirational people in history had their flaws. So what?

The point is that he was black. This conclusion in this paragraph says it all. At the time MLK said that, he was not allowed to sit on the same toilets as white people much less eat in the same restaurants. White oppression and racism were very real. Sometimes I think some of the people on here would love to see those days again. Perhaps thats what they think of when they think of making america great again.

the left tries constantly to do that with some success by them rewriting historical events the way they want them understood. A lot of myths really have no value except for different groups to make hay with . I see MLK day as " what idiot argues against another paid holiday" ? scenario. MLK, the Kennedy's, & Wallace were people who wanted change or retention of status quo past the limits of what others were willing to accept. They paid with their lives for their ideas just that simple. MB

So you support gang rape? If you haven't paid attention many communities have already outlawed and protested Columbus. Historical statues are removed frequently now in our country by progressives, works of literature, movies are banned, history rewritten to promote a more progressive friendly view.

If progressives want a "woke history" lets shed a bright light on the true character of MLK. Where's the outrage from the meetoo gals?

Saw a black lady drinking coffee, sitting on a bench, near a local MLK memorial. There’s a button you push that plays part of the famous speech. She was dressed well, maybe on her way to work. Maybe an interview, maybe homeless or somewhere in between. Who knows.

All I could guess was that the words inspired her in some way.

That’s enough for me. Is that ok?

MLK was as much a sinner as anyone else. No more, no less.
“The evil that men do lives after them; The good is oft interred with their bones.”

Also heard once from a black professor at American University: “If Martin Luther King and Robert E. Lee had lived during the same time, they would have been best of friends”

Imagine where we’d be if they did?

https://www.takimag.com/article/the_talk_nonblack_version_john_derbyshire/

In the 60s, my dad was working at my grandfather's used furniture store in San Francisco when a bunch of black guys came around to beat up any shop owner who had white skin (my grandfather's store was in SF's Fillmore District, which was a very poor neighborhood with large black and Jewish populations). Other black folk came by to stop the attacks. It turned out that the aggressors were affiliated with Malcolm X and the good guys were MLK Jr's supporters.


I'm sure there were plenty of bad things done by MLK Jr., but his message and his followers at the time were generally good people with good intentions. That can't be said of Malcom X or, in today's context, the Black Lives Matter crowd.

It's not surprising that MLK was a front man for Communists. Communists have a long history of agitating in the black community.

Where have you ben the last few decades? TJ and CC already have had the historical colonoscopy and all misty-eyed notions of them have ben dispelled.

It is MLKjr's turn to get it good and hard, just like he gave it to the wives of his parishioners or the gal his fellow civil rights activist / minister raped in front of MLKjr.

Jim wins the stupid contest !!

Hands down too.

Communism always strikes a chord in the poorest most disenfranchised communities and countries. It has the most to offer people with nothing. Mostly hollow promises, the chance to be part of something larger as a collective than they ever dreamed possible as an Individual and the fantasy of social equality which isn't possible.

Just another way to control the population.

In Roman times, the Plebians were controlled by "Bread and Circuses" Now it's the NBA and EBT cards. The upper crust's way of keeping the great unwashed under control hasn't changed much in a couple of thousand years. Rabble rousers like MLK were unwitting pawns of the power brokers.
Jerry

Hey look... the daily my pecker is teeny so lets pick on black people so I feel better about my crap life post...

Was wondering where it was.

The black community in America is a church culture, but by and large not Christian.
Long ago the mainstream rejected Booker T and Carver... both great good Christians.
Instead they embraced Dubois, a communist.
James Cone sought to combine Marx and the Apostle Paul. Black idolatry was the result.
MLK lived a habitual chronic unrepentant life of gross deviance, orgies, adultery and fornication.
Divine grace and true regeneration is the answer, not Marx or SJW ism.
Dereliction in child reading is the primary cause of lawlessness in black ghetto land.
MLK s example is louder than his verbal eloquence.
The sooner blacks stop worshipping at his altar the better for us all.

That is, without a doubt, one of the best posts ever. I live in a county with a large Black population, almost 25% of the total. Most go to church, and therefore, should be Christians...........but the Black church is not a place where worshipping the Lord is the main priority, it is first and foremost a place to promote their political agenda. The Black church is used for political rallies, for political candidates to come and "worship" (aka campaign), and as the center point for such groups as the NAACP and the BLM.

Our local TV news comes out of Nashville TN, and there is a lot of violence in that city, primarily Blacks doing the crimes. There are always the usual suspects among the Black community, mostly pastors, who are always on TV talking about how this violence much stop and how kids need to quit killing each other..........good points, BUT....who is that always gets the blame for it, the White race, because they're not doing enough for the Black community.

The apostasy of the black church is a great tragedy.
They really need a black George Whitefield. Instead there is Crefflo Dollar, Rev. Wright, J Cone and mind science voodoo Oprah. Sad. I pray.

Back in those days all the newspapers and TV stations weren't owned by northeasterners and all the journalist weren't Democrats so those of us in the south knew exactly what kind of person he was.

LOL!!

That is exactly my point. Enough with this garbage. If you do this with MLK, you have no right to complain when they do it with other historic figures like Thomas Jefferson.

Thomas Jefferson's lofty wisdom bent the trajectory of America and all who admired her, towards justice, freedom, greatness.

Have you ever strolled through Anacostia? God forbid, at night.

The flaws of mankind are varied person to person. All are flawed - and in the cases of those people who become more prominent, such flaws tend to become more and more evident to others. Truth about human behavior does not respect race, gender, social prominence, cultural importance, etc., etc..

Sounds a lot like any and all religions, doesn't it? MLK and Muhammad are park-bench bros. Didn't even make it to the rising, but are as worshipped as JC. And that legend is more than a little suspect.

Al Gore and Greta dumass didn't even make it that far, not for lack of trying.

1. Who's complaining? Show me where I belly-ached about TJ getting poked.

2. But if I did care, my care would be legitimate in a way the MJKjr rimjobbers' is not.

Well said. The reason that we look at the speck of sawdust in someone else’s eye and we don't look at the plank in our own eye...it's easier to look at the sawdust in someone else’s eye because it distracts us from the plank in our own eye...in fact, other people’s issues (the things that are messed up about others) make us feel better about us.The reason that we do this is because it's easier on us. It distracts us from the fact that we’ve got issues as well. So the reason that we notice what's wrong with other people rather than what's wrong with us is because it helps us feel better about us. "Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in someone else's eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye...?" - Jesus

Because everybody's got a plank, right Antlers?

Antlers, can somebody with a plank point out somebody else's plank?

Good luck in changing close to sixty years of fables when it comes to MLK. Just another example of white guilt and nothing more. A national holiday for him was and is a travesty, but we don't learn. A few years ago, everyone went nuts over the Tuskegee Airmen and their bogus exploits during WWII. All either made up or just exaggerated. Recently we are now naming an aircraft carrier after a man just because he was black and if you think it had anything to do with his well-deserved navy Cross, you're as big an idiot as those who think Oswald and Ray were part of an organized conspiracy, but then again the list of assumptions by "experts" on the Fire are legendary...

Jorge and I do not often agree, but he is spot on about this. People need to stand on their own merits, and not on the color of their skin. Instead, we have "propped up" Black people simply because they are Black, and have promoted them at a rate that far exceeds that of White people. If someone deserves to be honored, then honor them on what they did, and not on what race they belong to. If MLK had been White, he'd been just another man who was using religion to get him some puzzy. The Black navy guy who's getting the carrier named after him did an exceptional thing.......but so did hundreds, if not thousands of other men in WW2, that we've never heard of.


I am often called a racist on here, and so be it if that's what you want to do. But, I would feel a lot different towards other races of people if we all had to play on a level playing field, and if someone is better than me, so be it..........however, if someone is not, then so be that too. We are not all the same, never have been, never will be, and when a government tries to make us that way, it only serves to make things worse.

MLK did a lot of good in changing people’s minds about race. However, the current crop of race exploiters reject the good that was in MLK. They exploit race and racism for their own political gain and create race based fear and hate in order to motivate their supporters. Obama’s exploitation of the Trayvon Martin shooting, with the help of the progressive fascist news media is the best recent example of this evil.