Today we celebrate the contributions to US civil rights made as a result of the leadership and perseverance of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
As with so many who were taken from us before their time, King has become a cult figure in American society. Various groups fight to rightfully claim his "legacy." JayTea at WizBang has some good thoughts about the futility of this. King was deliberately vague when it came to political partisanship, so virtually all discussion of King's politics is based mostly on speculation. What a remarkable contrast to today's big-name civil rights leaders, virtually all of whom are "bought-and-paid-for" shills for the Democrats, seemingly with no other agenda that to attack Republicans.
King's life was always surrounded by controversy. The FBI believed that the Southern Christian Leadership Council (SCLC), the civil rights organization created by Dr. King with help from various black Christian leaders, was infiltrated by communists. King himself advocated his own form of democratic socialism including racial quotas, both as a mechanism of recompense to blacks for the injustices of slavery and as a way to eradicate what he considered to be sinful "profit motive" of capitalism. King felt that profit resulted in greed, which then led to injustice and the trampling of human rights. And after his death, scandals involving plagiarism and marital infidelity also surfaced.
Yet King's contributions rise far above the limits of political ideology or even the merits of his own personal behavior. King was driven to achieve the dream of justice and equality for all men, the crown jewel of Western civilization and the ultimate embodiment of the Kingdom of God. Because his appeals were universal pleas and not personal attacks, he was able to focus the eyes of all Americans on his grand vision, and in his own lifetime he almost singlehandedly forced the eradication of laws that had codified discrimination against America's racial minorities for over a century.
King was wiretapped,
assaulted, and jailed, and yet his rhetoric remained remarkably free of
animus toward the individuals or political movements that made his life
difficult. His "Letter from a Birmingham Jail" contains some of the most eloquent explanations of the ideas of equality
and human rights ever committed to paper. King's strength lay in the fact that he passionately believed that he was doing the Lord's work; he did not try to create a legacy for himself or establish a political dynasty.
In his above-mentioned essay, JayTea believes that, had he lived, King would have become a spiritual leader similar to Billy
Graham, who has never labeled himself politically and who has been a
friend to Democrat and Republican officials alike. I believe that King would have moved on from voting rights legislation (which was pretty much a done deal at the time of his death) and would have begun concentrating on what we now know as "affirmative action"; that is, universal anti-discrimination policies and hiring requirements for minorities. He would also have been a strong advocate for more centralized government and more government benefits for the poor.
But regardless of our speculation, the actual accomplishments of Dr. King's all-too-short life have truly inspired and improved the lives of generations of Americans, and he will forever be remembered as a giant of the 20th century.
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Snopes.com has a good entry on some of the myths surrounding Dr. King. Here's another interesting article from libertarian site LewRockwell.com that busts a number of King myths that conservatives are guilty of perpetuating.
Gateway Pundit has two good posts, one which provides a humorous listing of events disguised as Martin Luther King tributes, but which are really no more than unapologetic Bush-bashing rallies, and another that examines the state of black America under the Bush administration but fails to find it any worse than during the previous decade. From the latter post:
Isn't it strange that this holiday, that could be a great occasion to unite our great country, can separate us more than any other American Holiday? And, this is not because Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., but because with each year we hear more speeches "against" a group, person, or idea, than "for" all of us.
Roundups and thoughts from Michelle Malkin, Evangelical Outpost, PowerLine, Mark D. Roberts.
My friend Stacy Harp has posted a video clip of MLK from Meet The Press in August 1967. Check it out.
UPDATE: I re-linked my wiretapping source to the 1976 Senate Intelligence Committee report on the activities of the FBI with respect to Dr. King.
King had managed to make J. Edgar Hoover's enemies list by virtue of his message of equality for all Americans, which Hoover and his peers understood to be code language for Marxism. King was further vilified in Hoover's eyes due to his associations with advisers believed by the FBI to be Communist Party operatives. Thus, to Hoover, King represented a grave threat -- not because Hoover was racist, but because Hoover was overwhelmingly paranoid about the infiltration of America by Communists. And he did everything in his power to destroy anyone whom he believed to be a dupe or enabler of communism.
None of this, of course, excuses the ham-fisted and crude tactics employed by the FBI to intimidate King.
And speaking of Bush-bashing rallies, Sen. Hillary Clinton put on her campaign hat once again and accused the Republican party of running the House of Representatives like a "plantation," going on to further say that the current House is "run in a way so that nobody with a contrary view has had a chance ... to make an argument, to be heard."
Sure. I know that everyone remembers how the Clintons wouldn't even flush a White House toilet without having a conference call with Newt Gingrich and Bob Dole, just to make sure it was okay.
Whatever.
PointFive blog spoofs Hillary here.
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