Definitely an agenda with a title like “Is MLK legacy destroyed”. We are all flawed human beings and but we should try to look at the positive attributes of our world leaders and major influencers of social change. MLK, not unlike Cesar Chavez and Nelson Mandela, have contributed greatly to society IMO. Why try to tear them down?
@ajh
I agree with both of these points, but the thread title almost invites a discussion on the nature of “reputation”, which in turn leads to politics (a ToS violation). I am a huge MLK admirer myself so, of course, I want these FBI accusations to be refuted somehow.
The point about Jefferson Davis is a good one. It doesn’t matter today whether Davis was a wonderful human being or an honorable man or whatever. Or at least that’s what I believe. One can’t celebrate Davis without celebrating the fundamentally objectionable things associated with him – and, in fact, I question whether anyone really does celebrate Davis other than to celebrate the fundamentally objectionable things associated with him, even if there are truly good qualities there that might be celebrated. So, sorry, Jeff Davis, and John C. Calhoun, and probably even Robert E. Lee: no statues.
Within the civil rights and antiwar movements with which King was associated, there is lots of proof that compassionate, admirable, and courageous moral positions on fundamental issues could coexist in the same person or group with rampant sexism and utter disregard for women. Learning that the hard way in the mid-late 60s gave birth to contemporary American feminism in the early 70s.
It used to be easy to say that a man’s personal contempt towards women and exploitation of them was not important in the context of his admirable moral positions in other matters. I don’t think we can say that now at all, and certainly not easily. It does matter if a great civil rights leader exploited and harmed women, women in general or specific women in his circle. Exactly how much it matters, and which penalties should be applied, is an important topic of conversation. I am comfortable with ambiguity in my heroes, because I’m comfortable with ambiguity generally, but many people are not.
I appreciate JHS’s thoughtful comment in #102.
The Steele dossier is an exceptionally poor analogy. It was not based on a FBI wiretap or a FBI agent’s summary of a FBI wiretap.
If MLK is seen to participated in a rape scenario as a bystander or enthusiast, his legacy of civil rights is unvarnished - however his holiday and statues come down.
Bottom line.
Moral equivalency is exactly what any other reaction would be to that information.
Movies. Speeches and historical significance and ongoing results. Fine. Statues. Nope. Holiday of course. But it simply becomes Civil Rights Movement Day.
Women’s rights are equally important.
@JHS wrote:
You could ask me instead of wildly speculating.
Who said this?
@Lynnski wrote:
@socaldad2002 wrote:
Did you two collaborate on this conspiracy theory?
No mention of Cointelpro on this thread?
Why is the file quarantined until 2027?
Short answer: in 1977, Judge John Lewis Smith Jr. of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia ordered the files sealed for 50 years in a ruling against the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.
Fifty years is enough time for information to disappear from files.
Not mentioned by name (COINTELPRO), but posters did mention the FBI under J. Edgar Hoover.
@dietz199 “Fifty years is enough time for information to disappear from files” – or to be messed with, as in, let’s add a bit to these files now that the technology is so much better.
I don’t understand the thread title. It seems to carry an assumption of guilt. It doesn’t matter to me that the author won the Pulitzer. It wasn’t for this work.
Sources matter, and until the primary source is released I’ll be skeptical of any accusations. And when they are, the personal and professional agendas of the accusers, as well as the time period in which the events occurred, will have to be taken into account.
If the linked report is true, it implicates King, for sure, but it also implicates the FBI. King was a witness to a violent rape and did nothing… and the FBI knew about the violent rape and also did nothing.
The business about describing oral sex as “unnatural sex acts” and “depravity,” that’s peculiar. It’s peculiar now, but it was peculiar then as well.
Not really. Sodomy was a felony in every state in the early 1960s and sodomites were viewed as sinful and immoral.
in re post 113.
As I interpret the title of the thread, it would particularly apply to those that are willing to condemn the man based on recent and (so far) unproven allegations. Yes, I know that is contrary to much Western civilization, and not, what some call, the American way. Yet, there are those willing in the U.S. to condemn based on unproven allegations. There are some unwilling to let go even after investigations show the allegations to be false, or at the very least unproven.
Re: tearing down MLK statutes, do you not see a difference between a man who represents desegregation, fought for equal rights, and “all men and women are created equal” from say a Robert E. Lee who is a symbol of slavery, confederate flags and keeping a divided country. For whom do we want to celebrate their accomplishment to the betterment of the nation?
MLK may have been a flawed individual, like most/all politicans, but I look at all of the good he has done. I’m really confused as how someone could call him “slime”. He gave up his life in an attempt to give all Americans an equal footing by his support of the the civil rights movement and he did it peacefully.
FYI, if you have Sirius XM radio Michael Smerconish will do an hour on this subject at 10 a.m. today. POTUS channel 124.
He’s one of the most balanced voices out there…