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By Marcus Epstein
January 18, 2003

There is probably no greater sacred cow in America than Martin
Luther King Jr. The slightest criticism of him or even
suggesting that he isn't deserving of a national holiday leads
to the usual accusations of racist, fascism, and the rest of the
usual left-wing epithets not only from liberals, but also from
many ostensible conservatives and libertarians.

This is amazing because during the 50s and 60s, the Right almost
unanimously opposed the civil rights movement. Contrary to the
claims of many neocons, the opposition was not limited to the
John Birch Society and southern conservatives. It was made by
politicians like Ronald Reagan and Barry Goldwater, and in the
pages of Modern Age, Human Events, National Review, and the
Freeman.

Today, the official conservative and libertarian movement
portrays King as someone on our side who would be fighting Jesse
Jackson and Al Sharpton if he were alive. Most all conservative
publications and websites have articles around this time of the
year praising King and discussing how today's civil rights
leaders are betraying his legacy. Jim Powell's otherwise
excellent The Triumph of Liberty rates King next to Ludwig von
Mises and Albert J. Nock as a libertarian hero. Attend any IHS
seminar, and you'll read "A letter from a Birmingham Jail" as a
great piece of anti-statist wisdom. The Heritage Foundation
regularly has lectures and symposiums honoring his legacy. There
are nearly a half dozen neocon and left-libertarian think tanks
and legal foundations with names such as "The Center for Equal
Opportunity" and the "American Civil Rights Institute" which
claim to model themselves after King.

Why is a man once reviled by the Right now celebrated by it as a
hero? The answer partly lies in the fact that the mainstream
Right has gradually moved to the left since King's death. The
influx of many neoconservative intellectuals, many of whom were
involved in the civil rights movement, into the conservative
movement also contributes to the King phenomenon. This does not
fully explain the picture, because on many issues King was far
to the left of even the neoconservatives, and many King admirers
even claim to adhere to principles like freedom of association
and federalism. The main reason is that they have created a
mythical Martin Luther King Jr., that they constructed solely
from one line in his "I Have a Dream" speech.

In this article, I will try to dispel the major myths that the
conservative movement has about King. I found a good deal of the
information for this piece in I May Not Get There With You: The
True Martin Luther King by black leftist Michael Eric Dyson.
Dyson shows that King supported black power, reparations,
affirmative action, and socialism. He believes this made King
even more admirable. He also deals frankly with King's
philandering and plagiarism, though he excuses them. If you
don't mind reading his long discussions about gangsta rap and
the like, I strongly recommend this book.

Myth #1: King wanted only equal rights, not special privileges
and would have opposed affirmative action, quotas, reparations,
and the other policies pursued by today's civil rights
leadership.

This is probably the most repeated myth about King. Writing on
National Review Online, There Heritage Foundation's Matthew
Spalding wrote a piece entitled "Martin Luther King's
Conservative Mind," where he wrote, "An agenda that advocates
quotas, counting by race and set-asides takes us away from
King’s vision."

The problem with this view is that King openly advocated quotas
and racial set-asides. He wrote that the "Negro today is not
struggling for some abstract, vague rights, but for concrete
improvement in his way of life." When equal opportunity laws
failed to achieve this, King looked for other ways. In his book
Where Do We Go From Here, he suggested that "A society that has
done something special against the Negro for hundreds of years
must now do something special for him, to equip him to compete
on a just and equal basis." To do this he expressed support for
quotas. In a 1968 Playboy interview, he said, “If a city has a
30% Negro population, then it is logical to assume that Negroes
should have at least 30% of the jobs in any particular company,
and jobs in all categories rather than only in menial areas.”
King was more than just talk in this regard. Working through his
Operation Breadbasket, King threatened boycotts of businesses
that did not hire blacks in proportion to their population.

King was even an early proponent of reparations. In his 1964
book, Why We Can't Wait, he wrote,

No amount of gold could provide an adequate compensation for the
exploitation and humiliation of the Negro in America down
through the centuries…Yet a price can be placed on unpaid wages.
The ancient common law has always provided a remedy for the
appropriation of a the labor of one human being by another. This
law should be made to apply for American Negroes. 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 in accordance with the accepted practice of common
law.

Predicting that critics would note that many whites were equally
disadvantaged, King claimed that his program, which he called
the "Bill of Rights for the Disadvantaged" would help poor
whites as well. This is because once the blacks received
reparations, the poor whites would realize that their real enemy
was rich whites.

Myth # 2: King was an American patriot, who tried to get
Americans to live up to their founding ideals.

In National Review, Roger Clegg wrote that "There may have been
a brief moment when there existed something of a national
consensus – a shared vision eloquently articulated in Martin
Luther King, Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech, with deep roots in
the American Creed, distilled in our national motto, E pluribus
unum. Most Americans still share it, but by no means all." Many
other conservatives have embraced this idea of an American Creed
that built upon Jefferson and Lincoln, and was then fulfilled by
King and libertarians like Clint Bolick and neocons like Bill
Bennett.

Despite his constant invocations of the Declaration of
Independence, King did not have much pride in America's
founding. He believed "our nation was born in genocide," and
claimed that the Declaration of Independence and Constitution
were meaningless for blacks because they were written by slave
owners.

Myth # 3: King was a Christian activist whose struggle for civil
rights is similar to the battles fought by the Christian Right
today.

Ralph Reed claims that King's "indispensable genius" provided
"the vision and leadership that renewed and made crystal clear
the vital connection between religion and politics." He proudly
admitted that the Christian Coalition "adopted many elements of
King's style and tactics." The pro-life group, Operation Rescue,
often compared their struggle against abortion to King's
struggle against segregation. In a speech entitled The
Conservative Virtues of Dr. Martin Luther King, Bill Bennet
described King, as "not primarily a social activist, he was
primarily a minister of the Christian faith, whose faith
informed and directed his political beliefs."

Both King's public stands and personal behavior makes the
comparison between King and the Religious Right questionable.

FBI surveillance showed that King had dozens of extramarital
affairs. Although many of the pertinent records are sealed,
several agents who watched observed him engage in many
questionable acts including buying prostitutes with SCLC money.
Ralph Abernathy, who King called "the best friend I have in the
world," substantiated many of these charges in his
autobiography, And the Walls Came Tumbling Down. It is true that
a man's private life is mostly his business. However, most
conservatives vehemently condemned Jesse Jackson when news of
his illegitimate son came out, and claimed he was unfit to be a
minister.

King also took stands that most in the Christian Right would
disagree with. When asked about the Supreme Court's decision to
ban school prayer, King responded,

I endorse it. I think it was correct. Contrary to what many have
said, it sought to outlaw neither prayer nor belief in god. In a
pluralistic society such as ours, who is to determine what
prayer shall be spoken and by whom? Legally, constitutionally or
otherwise, the state certainly has no such right.

While King died before the Roe vs. Wade decision, and, to the
best of my knowledge, made no comments on abortion, he was an
ardent supporter of Planned Parenthood. He even won their
Margaret Sanger Award in 1966 and had his wife give a speech
entitled Family Planning – A Special and Urgent Concern which he
wrote. In the speech, he did not compare the civil rights
movement to the struggle of Christian Conservatives, but he did
say "there is a striking kinship between our movement and
Margaret Sanger’s early efforts."

Myth # 4: King was an anti-communist.

In another article about Martin Luther King, Roger Clegg of
National Review applauds King for speaking out against the
"oppression of communism!" To gain the support of many liberal
whites, in the early years, King did make a few mild
denunciations of communism. He also claimed in a 1965 Playboy
that there "are as many Communists in this freedom movement as
there are Eskimos in Florida." This was a bald-faced lie. Though
King was never a Communist and was always critical of the Soviet
Union, he had knowingly surrounded himself with Communists. His
closest advisor Stanley Levison was a Communist, as was his
assistant Jack O'Dell. Robert and later John F. Kennedy
repeatedly warned him to stop associating himself with such
subversives, but he never did. He frequently spoke before
Communist front groups such as the National Lawyers Guild and
Lawyers for Democratic Action. King even attended seminars at
The Highlander Folk School, another Communist front, which
taught Communist tactics, which he later employed.

King's sympathy for communism may have contributed to his
opposition to the Vietnam War, which he characterized as a
racist, imperialistic, and unjust war. King claimed that America
"had committed more war crimes than any nation in the world."
While he acknowledged the NLF "may not be paragons of virtue,"
he never criticized them. However, he was rather harsh on Diem
and the South. He denied that the NLF was communist, and
believed that Ho Chi Minh should have been the legitimate ruler
of Vietnam. As a committed globalist, he believed that “our
loyalties must transcend our race, our tribe, our class, and our
nation. This means we must develop a world perspective.”

Many of King's conservative admirers have no problem calling
anyone who questions American foreign policy a "fifth
columnist." While I personally agree with King on some of his
stands on Vietnam, it is hypocritical for those who are still
trying to get Jane Fonda tried for sedition to applaud King.

Myth # 5: King supported the free market.

OK, you don't hear this too often, but it happens. For example,
Father Robert A. Sirico delivered a paper to the Acton Institute
entitled Civil Rights and Social Cooperation. In it, he wrote,

A freer economy would take us closer to the ideals of the
pioneers in this country’s civil rights movement. Martin Luther
King, Jr. recognized this when he wrote: "With the growth of
industry the folkways of white supremacy will gradually pass
away," and he predicted that such growth would "Increase the
purchasing power of the Negro [which in turn] will result in
improved medical care, greater educational opportunities, and
more adequate housing. Each of these developments will result in
a further weakening of segregation."

King of course was a great opponent of the free economy. In a
speech in front of his staff in 1966 he said,

You can't talk about solving the economic problem of the Negro
without talking about billions of dollars. You can't talk about
ending the slums without first saying profit must be taken out
of slums. You're really tampering and getting on dangerous
ground because you are messing with folk then. You are messing
with captains of industry… Now this means that we are treading
in difficult water, because it really means that we are saying
that something is wrong…with capitalism… There must be a better
distribution of wealth and maybe America must move toward a
Democratic Socialism.

King called for "totally restructuring the system" in a way that
was not capitalist or "the antithesis of communist." For more
information on King's economic views, see Lew Rockwell's The
Economics of Martin Luther King, Jr.

Myth # 6: King was a conservative.

As all the previous myths show, King's views were hardly
conservative. If this was not enough, it is worth noting what
King said about the two most prominent postwar American
conservative politicians, Ronald Reagan and Barry Goldwater.

King accused Barry Goldwater of "Hitlerism." He believed that
Goldwater advocated a "narrow nationalism, a crippling
isolationism, and a trigger-happy attitude." On domestic issues
he felt that "Mr. Goldwater represented an unrealistic
conservatism that was totally out of touch with the realities of
the twentieth century." King said that Goldwater's positions on
civil rights were "morally indefensible and socially suicidal."

King said of Reagan, "When a Hollywood performer, lacking
distinction even as an actor, can become a leading war hawk
candidate for the presidency, only the irrationalities induced
by war psychosis can explain such a turn of events."

Despite King's harsh criticisms of those men, both supported the
King holiday. Goldwater even fought to keep King's FBI files,
which contained information about his adulterous sex life and
Communist connections, sealed.

Myth # 7: King wasn't a plagiarist.

OK, even most of the neocons won't deny this, but it is still
worth bringing up, because they all ignore it. King started
plagiarizing as an undergraduate. When Boston University founded
a commission to look into it, they found that that 45 percent of
the first part and 21 percent of the second part of his
dissertation was stolen, but they insisted that "no thought
should be given to revocation of Dr. King's doctoral degree." In
addition to his dissertation many of his major speeches, such as
"I Have a Dream," were plagiarized, as were many of his books
and writings. For more information on King's plagiarism, The
Martin Luther King Plagiarism Page and Theodore Pappas'
Plagiarism and the Culture War are excellent resources.

When faced with these facts, most of King's conservative and
libertarian fans either say they weren't part of his main
philosophy, or usually they simply ignore them. Slightly before
the King Holiday was signed into law, Governor Meldrim Thompson
of New Hampshire wrote a letter to Ronald Reagan expressing
concerns about King's morality and Communist connections. Ronald
Reagan responded, "I have the reservations you have, but here
the perception of too many people is based on an image, not
reality. Indeed, to them the perception is reality.”

Far too many on the Right are worshipping that perception.
Rather than face the truth about King's views, they create a man
based upon a few lines about judging men "by the content of
their character rather than the color of their skin" – something
we are not supposed to do in his case, of course – while
ignoring everything else he said and did. If King is truly an
admirable figure, they are doing his legacy a disservice by
using his name to promote an agenda he clearly would not have
supported.

January 18, 2003

Marcus Epstein [send him mail] is an undergraduate at the
College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, VA, where he is
president of the college libertarians and editor of the
conservative newspaper, The Remnant. A selection of his articles
can be seen here.

http://www.lewrockwell.com/2003/01/marcus-epstein/myths-of-
martin-luther-king/


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