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jodymarie aimee

(3,975 posts) Mon Jan 21, 2019, 02:47 PM Jan 2019

MLK was a militant RADICAL, not a Disney character..63% of Americans were against him in the 60s

THIS IS A FINE ARTICLE... MLK was a radical.....like all my heroes....63% of Americans were against him in the 60s...

Martin Luther King was no prophet of unity. He was a radical
Bhaskar Sunkara

King was a champion of the poor and oppressed. If we want to truly honor his legacy, we’ll struggle to finish his work

Mon 21 Jan 2019

‘For his own militancy, King was hounded by the FBI, denounced as a communist, and bombarded with death threats.’ Photograph: Alex Wong/Getty Images

Martin Luther King Jr is useful to just about everyone nowadays. For President Donald Trump, celebrating King is a chance to tell everyone that he shares “his dream of equality, freedom, justice, and peace”. For Ram trucks, it’s a chance to, well, sell trucks.

This wasn’t always the case. In 1983, 15 years after King’s death, 22 senators voted against an official holiday honoring him on the third Monday in January. The North Carolina senator Jesse Helms undertook a 16-day filibuster of the bill, claiming that King’s “action-oriented Marxism” was “not compatible with the concepts of this country”. He was joined in his opposition by Senators John McCain, Orrin Hatch, and Chuck Grassley, among others.

Reagan reluctantly signed the legislation, all the while grumbling that he would have preferred “a day similar to Lincoln’s birthday, which is not technically a national holiday”.

And guess what? He had a reason to be hesitant. The real Martin Luther King Jr stood for a radical vision of equality, justice, and anti-militarism that rebelled against Reagan’s entire agenda. Today more than ever, we need to rediscover that champion of working people.

The Disneyified version of Dr King begins and ends with his role as a civil rights leader, who summoned Christian teachings, as well as Gandhian tactics, and told us of his dream that “one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal.’”

But in that same oft-quoted I Have a Dream speech from 1963, King celebrated the “marvelous new militancy which has engulfed the Negro community” and spoke of the “fierce urgency of now”. For his own militancy, King was hounded by the FBI, denounced as a communist, and bombarded with death threats. Only 22% of Americans approved of the Freedom Rides fighting segregated transportation. By the mid-1960s, 63% of Americans had an unfavorable opinion of King, according to polls.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/jan/21/martin-luther-king-jr-day-legacy-radical?utm_term=RWRpdG9yaWFsX0d1YXJkaWFuVG9kYXlVUy0xOTAxMjE%3D&utm_source=esp&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=GuardianTodayUS&CMP=GTUS_email

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MLK was a militant RADICAL, not a Disney character..63% of Americans were against him in the 60s (Original Post) jodymarie aimee Jan 2019 OP

I remember him being called "outside agitator" Hermit-The-Prog Jan 2019 #1

Demanding equality was seen as militant and radical then, still is in many places. Eliot Rosewater Jan 2019 #2

I remember how controversial he was at the time. The Velveteen Ocelot Jan 2019 #3

Yes, he was a radical but not a militant. former9thward Jan 2019 #4

how's about you read the post/article... jodymarie aimee Jan 2019 #5

I can have my own views. former9thward Jan 2019 #6

when he challenged vietnam war, poverty, and corporate america he had..to go nt msongs Jan 2019 #7

Conservatives use MLK's memory to prove they're not bigots BannonsLiver Jan 2019 #8

Dr. King was a non violent protester who espoused social equality and pacifism. McCamy Taylor Jan 2019 #9

MLK was not a Marxist and did not expouse Marx's ideas GulfCoast66 Jan 2019 #10

Hermit-The-Prog

(33,271 posts)

1. I remember him being called "outside agitator"

Reply to jodymarie aimee (Original post)

Mon Jan 21, 2019, 02:51 PM

Jan 2019

It puzzled me why adults seemed to be so mad at him.

Eliot Rosewater

(31,106 posts)

2. Demanding equality was seen as militant and radical then, still is in many places.

Reply to jodymarie aimee (Original post)

Mon Jan 21, 2019, 02:53 PM

Jan 2019

The man was of course a great, loving man.

The Velveteen Ocelot

(115,615 posts)

3. I remember how controversial he was at the time.

Reply to jodymarie aimee (Original post)

Mon Jan 21, 2019, 02:54 PM

Jan 2019

And it wasn't just on account of race issues, but also because of his outspoken opposition to the Vietnam war. The "establishment" considered him to be a dangerous radical and probably a Communist.

former9thward

(31,949 posts)

4. Yes, he was a radical but not a militant.

Reply to jodymarie aimee (Original post)

Mon Jan 21, 2019, 02:55 PM

Jan 2019

That JFK and RFK wiretapped him is proof he was a radical. Before his death he was denounced by black militants as a sell out for his views on non-violence.

jodymarie aimee

(3,975 posts)

5. how's about you read the post/article...

Reply to former9thward (Reply #4)

Mon Jan 21, 2019, 03:11 PM

Jan 2019

For his own militancy, King was hounded by the FBI, denounced as a communist, and bombarded with death threats.

that is in my post...you can also look up the definition of the adjective militant...

former9thward

(31,949 posts)

6. I can have my own views.

Reply to jodymarie aimee (Reply #5)

Mon Jan 21, 2019, 03:19 PM

Jan 2019

I am not bound by yours or what the article says. This is a discussion board for good or bad.

msongs

(67,371 posts)

7. when he challenged vietnam war, poverty, and corporate america he had..to go nt

Reply to jodymarie aimee (Original post)

Mon Jan 21, 2019, 09:11 PM

Jan 2019

BannonsLiver

(16,313 posts)

8. Conservatives use MLK's memory to prove they're not bigots

Reply to jodymarie aimee (Original post)

Mon Jan 21, 2019, 09:15 PM

Jan 2019

MLK was good enough to get himself shot. Imagine what they would have thought of an MLK that lived another 40 years. He’d be viewed in the same light as conservatives view Rev. Jesse Jackson and Rev. Sharpton by the very same conservatives who claim to admire MLK today.

I remember when I first saw the polling you have in your OP. I felt like I had been lied to my whole life.

McCamy Taylor

(19,240 posts)

9. Dr. King was a non violent protester who espoused social equality and pacifism.

Reply to jodymarie aimee (Original post)

Mon Jan 21, 2019, 09:28 PM

Jan 2019

He was killed when he began to embrace Marxist principles---a fair wage in exchange for labor. We watched his funeral on TV in my (integrated urban) elementary school. Yes, a whole lot of Americans were extremely bigoted back then. A lot are still bigoted, they just phrase their ugliness in different language. But the beauty of Dr. King's message never dies. It is as timeless as Gandhi's, the man upon whom he modeled his movement. And as time passes, and the memory of Confederate "heroes" fades to dust, Dr. King will only grow in stature.

Note that Jesus also said that he had come to "set fire" to the world. He did not mean that he was going to burn down Jerusalem or even Rome. The most effective forms of social "fire" are the fires that we light in the minds of others.

GulfCoast66

(11,949 posts)

10. MLK was not a Marxist and did not expouse Marx's ideas

Reply to McCamy Taylor (Reply #9)

Mon Jan 21, 2019, 10:32 PM

Jan 2019

A fair wage for a days work was not a Marxist idea. And Social Justice did not begin with Marx.

MLK certainly did not believe in the in a workers revolution nor worker ownership of the means of production.

It is aggravating when right wingers confuse Social Democracy with Marxism. It is even more so when the left does it.

Marx has some important insights, but his solutions are generally discarded.

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