# If MLK was a Commie, so much the better for Commies **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [January 19, 2015, 5:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-mlk-was-a-commie-so-much-the-better-for-commies/710296 "2015-01-19T17:36:51Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2015, 5:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-mlk-was-a-commie-so-much-the-better-for-commies/710296/1 "2015-01-19T17:36:51Z")
[He](http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Martin_Luther_King#Commies) [wasn’t](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Luther_King,_Jr.#Allegations_of_communism) one, of course, or the FBI would have found the proof – certainly they looked hard enough. Martin Luther King was a liberal Republican (a species now extinct). But he definitely had democratic-socialist leanings, and we should keep that in mind, as a **good** thing about him, as we celebrate him every year. For instance, at the time of his death he was working on a multiracial [Poor People’s Campaign](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poor_People%27s_Campaign). [“His dream was for all poor and working people to live lives of decency and dignity”.](http://www.salon.com/2015/01/19/his_dream_was_for_all_poor_and_working_people_to_live_lives_of_decency_and_dignity/) – Cornel West > [@](#): > > In a speech to staff in 1966, King explained: “There must be a better distribution of wealth and maybe America must move toward a democratic socialism.” If he had lived and pursued this project, the radical King would be well known. > > \ > > The radical King was a democratic socialist who sided with poor and working people in the class struggle taking place in capitalist societies. This class struggle may be visible or invisible, manifest or latent. But it rages on in a fight over resources, power, and space. In the past thirty years we have witnessed a top-down, one-sided class war against poor and working people in the name of a morally bankrupt policy of deregulating markets, lowering taxes, and cutting spending for those who are already socially neglected and economically abandoned. America’s two main political parties, each beholden to big money, offer merely alternative versions of oligarchic rule. The radical King was neither Marxist nor communist, but he did understand the role of class analysis in his focus on poor and working people. [MLK’s radical vision got distorted: Here’s his _real_ legacy on militarism & inequality.](http://www.salon.com/2015/01/19/mlks_radical_vision_got_distorted_heres_his_real_legacy_on_militarism_inequality/) > [@](#): > > Today, on Martin Luther King Jr.’s federal holiday, many will write of Dr. King’s dream for equality for all people and his heroic leadership that inspired very real progressive change in our country’s laws and culture. Most will politely ignore the more radical currents of Dr. King’s vision, his activism for living wage jobs as a human right and an end to U.S. imperialism abroad, ideas that remain outside mainstream American thought to this day. > > In the latter years of his life, Dr. King, already a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, frequently spoke publicly of the three evils holding back his society: racism, poverty and militarism. In one controversial speech,“Beyond Vietnam,” delivered on April 4, 1967, exactly one year before his assassination and almost six years before U.S. troops withdrew from Vietnam, Dr. King called his government “the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today.” He argued national investment in the war had already doomed President Lyndon Johnson’s ‘War on Poverty’ to failure—a claim that the New York Times objected forcefully. In the address, Dr. King implored the necessity for the nation to undergo a “radical revolution of values,” explaining, “We must rapidly begin the shift from a thing-oriented society to a person-oriented society. When machines and computers, profit motives, and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, extreme materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered.” > > The speech prompted President Johnson to revoke Dr. King’s standing invitation to the White House. According to Tavis Smiley, it also earned Dr. King denunciations from 168 major newspapers the next day, including the Pittsburgh Courier, a leading black newspaper. Dr. King continued in his final year, now an unpopular public figure, to support workers around the country—he was in Memphis, where he was assassinated, in support of striking public sanitation employees. He organized a Poor People’s Campaign, often at odds with the Southern Christian Leadership Council that he helped to create, advocating for a Freedom Budget that sought to use the public treasury to extend genuine economic opportunity and material security to all Americans. After peaking at fourth on Gallup’s 1964 list of Most Admired Men, Dr. King had disappeared from the list by 1967. He died with disapproval ratings similar to those enjoyed by George W. Bush upon his exit from office. Yet, in a Gallup poll conducted in 1999 to determine the most admired Americans of the 20th century, Dr. King is listed second. Unpopular in his time for challenging mainstream opinions of U.S. poverty and militarism, Dr. King is sanitized in our cultural memory, stripped of the radical roots of his values. He is now loved in death by the same economic-political establishment he opposed in life. > > \ > > Dr. King’s social critique did not shy away from identifying causes of the economic inequality that underscores racial and social inequality. He called out a military-corporate alliance, arguing, “This need to maintain social stability for our investments accounts for the counterrevolutionary actions in Guatemala,” and in Indonesia, Cambodia, Venezuela and Peru throughout the 1960s. One day, Dr. King warned, “[We] will look across the seas and see individual capitalists of the West investing huge sums of money in Asia, Africa, and South America, only to take the profits out with no consideration for the social betterment of the countries and say this is not just.” Prophetic. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2015, 7:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-mlk-was-a-commie-so-much-the-better-for-commies/710296/2 "2015-01-19T19:21:57Z")
Inspired, BTW, by [this Pit thread](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=746440). > [@Let's pit Martin Luther King!](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-pit-martin-luther-king/710016/1): > > Was he a communist? Probably. I’d love to get my hands on the sealed FBI files. I’m sure there’s even more reasons to hate Mr. King . ---
**Author:** ![Tapioca\_Dextrin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Tapioca\_Dextrin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tapioca_Dextrin)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2015, 7:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-mlk-was-a-commie-so-much-the-better-for-commies/710296/3 "2015-01-19T19:42:05Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Martin Luther King was a liberal Republican (a species now extinct). . In what sense was he any type of Republican? He was never a member of the Republican Party. He never endorsed a single Republican politician. From its founding in 1854 to losing the South in 1872, the GOP was anti slavery. MLK was against slavery. That’s kinda pushing it for the man who said > [@](#): > > I had no alternative but to urge every Negro and white person of goodwill to vote against Mr. Goldwater and to withdraw support from any Republican candidate that did not publicly disassociate himself from Senator Goldwater and his philosophy. or > [@](#): > > 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 a war psychosis can explain such a melancholy turn of events. ---
**Author:** ![Slithy\_Tove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slithy_tove/32/18248_2.png) [@Slithy\_Tove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slithy_Tove)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2015, 8:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-mlk-was-a-commie-so-much-the-better-for-commies/710296/4 "2015-01-19T20:07:58Z")
One thing he was: one of our last great rhetoricians. Johnson did miracles one-on-one and Nixon spun webs over the phone, but neither were any great shakes up at the podium. Reagan delivered a bunch of pseudo-profundities that intellectuals were supposed to feel like shameful elitists for not appreciating (they didn’t anyway). Clinton’s speeches were all spin, Bush’s all corkscrew, and Obama sounds like he’s reading from a corporate brochure. I miss the golden age of bloviators. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2015, 12:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-mlk-was-a-commie-so-much-the-better-for-commies/710296/5 "2015-01-20T00:01:33Z")
> [@Tapioca\_Dextrin](#): > > In what sense was he any type of Republican? He was never a member of the Republican Party. He never endorsed a single Republican politician. I thought he was before the 1960s, and should have checked, but . . . Googling turns up [contradictory](http://humanevents.com/2006/08/16/why-martin-luther-king-was-republican/) [results](http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2013/08/28/2540251/martin-luther-king-republican/). ---
**Author:** ![Tapioca\_Dextrin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Tapioca\_Dextrin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tapioca_Dextrin)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2015, 12:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-mlk-was-a-commie-so-much-the-better-for-commies/710296/6 "2015-01-20T00:09:01Z")
That first cite made me throw up in my mouth. > [@](#): > > From its founding in 1854 as the anti-slavery party until today, the Republican Party has championed freedom and civil rights for blacks. ---
**Author:** ![Indistinguishable](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/90ced4/32.png) [@Indistinguishable](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Indistinguishable)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2015, 12:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-mlk-was-a-commie-so-much-the-better-for-commies/710296/7 "2015-01-20T00:11:46Z")
The only people claiming MLK Jr. was a Republican are, well, Republicans, and not particularly credibly. What seems to be true is that MLK Sr. was a Republican (back, of course, when the Republicans were a different, pre-Southern Strategy party), and MLK Jr. at one point considered Richard Nixon a good friend (though they eventually had a falling out; see [here](http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/01/21/when-martin-luther-king-jr-and-richard-nixon-were-friends.html)), but MLK Jr. was not by any means a Republican. ([Further cite](http://www.politifact.com/texas/statements/2011/jan/17/raging-elephants/houston-group-says-martin-luther-king-jr-was-repub/)) ---
**Author:** ![Indistinguishable](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/90ced4/32.png) [@Indistinguishable](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Indistinguishable)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2015, 12:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-mlk-was-a-commie-so-much-the-better-for-commies/710296/8 "2015-01-20T00:18:34Z")
(I realize now that the PolitiFact cite I linked to is what the thinkprogress cite **BrainGlutton** linked to is essentially based on.) ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2015, 12:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-mlk-was-a-commie-so-much-the-better-for-commies/710296/9 "2015-01-20T00:26:51Z")
What’s the debate? That MLK had democratic-socialist leanings and therefore folks with similar political leanings should get the warm and fuzzies about it? “Good” as used in the is, of course, not an objectively definably attribute when it comes to politics. Surely those who lean in the other direction aren’t going to say it’s necessarily “good”. And I can’t for the life of me figure out what the thread title is supposed to be saying. ---
**Author:** ![Indistinguishable](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/90ced4/32.png) [@Indistinguishable](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Indistinguishable)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2015, 12:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-mlk-was-a-commie-so-much-the-better-for-commies/710296/10 "2015-01-20T00:42:01Z")
The thread title seems straightforward. Expanded out: “If Martin Luther King Jr. was actually a Communist, as many allege, then this then this association should not be reason for us to think less of Martin Luther King Jr. (as the allegers might mean for us to do); rather, it would be reason for us to think more highly of Communists”. Agree with it or not, but the words are clear. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2015, 12:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-mlk-was-a-commie-so-much-the-better-for-commies/710296/11 "2015-01-20T00:54:40Z")
> [@Indistinguishable](#): > > The thread title seems straightforward. Expanded out: “If Martin Luther King Jr. was actually a Communist, as many allege, then this then this association should not be reason for us to think less of Martin Luther King Jr. (as the allegers might mean for us to do); rather, it would be reason for us to think more highly of Communists”. Agree with it or not, but the words are clear. Except that it WOULDN’T be reason to think more highly of communists, and what does the title have to do with everything in the OP other than the 1st sentence (which is maybe 5% of the OP). ---
**Author:** ![The\_Second\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@The\_Second\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Second_Stone)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2015, 1:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-mlk-was-a-commie-so-much-the-better-for-commies/710296/12 "2015-01-20T01:09:48Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Martin Luther King was a liberal Republican (a species now extinct). What the “h” “e” double toothpicks, dude? I’m right here. MLK was a plagiarist. But he is in pretty good company there. Lincoln kinda plagiarized Pericles for the Gettysburg address. Craftsmen borrow, great artists steal. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2015, 4:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-mlk-was-a-commie-so-much-the-better-for-commies/710296/13 "2015-01-20T04:47:04Z")
I think the OP is missing the big picture. No, King was not a Communist (and if Hoover had evidence King was a Communist he wouldn’t have sealed the records - he would have sent it out to every newspaper in the country). But the Communists didn’t support King because they felt any real affinity for his beliefs. The Communists offered their support to King out of their own self-interests. They saw that America’s racial problems were one of our greatest vulnerabilities - it was an area in which we were on the wrong side. So Communists pushed for racial equality not because they particularly cared about the issue but just because they knew it was an issue where they could embarrass the United States. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2015, 4:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-mlk-was-a-commie-so-much-the-better-for-commies/710296/14 "2015-01-20T04:59:51Z")
A lot of good people were communists. Stalin probably included them under his “useful idiots” file. I don’t see any evidence that MLK was one. He seemed more social democrat than anything else. But sorry, nothing can make an informed person think better of communism. 100 million dead places them firmly in the same moral sphere as the Nazis. They just had better publicists and made better decisions about who to invade and when. ---
**Author:** ![Indistinguishable](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/90ced4/32.png) [@Indistinguishable](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Indistinguishable)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2015, 5:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-mlk-was-a-commie-so-much-the-better-for-commies/710296/15 "2015-01-20T05:42:37Z")
> [@Indistinguishable](#): > > The thread title seems straightforward. Expanded out: “If Martin Luther King Jr. was actually a Communist, as many allege, **then this then this** association should not be reason for us to think less of Martin Luther King Jr. (as the allegers might mean for us to do); rather, it would be reason for us to think more highly of Communists”. Agree with it or not, but the words are clear. Ack! My expansion needs to be reduced! ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2015, 6:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-mlk-was-a-commie-so-much-the-better-for-commies/710296/16 "2015-01-20T06:32:22Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > A lot of good people were communists. Stalin probably included them under his “useful idiots” file. I don’t see any evidence that MLK was one. He seemed more social democrat than anything else. King was too smart to be a Communist or a Communist ally. He was trying to change public opinion in the United States and he knew that any association with Communism would destroy his mission. So while Communists repeatedly offered King support, he always made sure to keep as much distance from them as he could. ---
**Author:** ![guizot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guizot/32/3636_2.png) [@guizot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/guizot)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2015, 7:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-mlk-was-a-commie-so-much-the-better-for-commies/710296/17 "2015-01-20T07:00:49Z")
> [@Tapioca\_Dextrin](#): > > . . . That’s kinda pushing it for the man who said . . [QUOTE=King] 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 a war psychosis can explain such a melancholy turn of events. [/quote] Oh, I hadn’t seen that quote before. I guess that explains why Reagan resisted today’s holiday for as long as he did. In the end, he signed it into law, which is to his credit. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2015, 7:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-mlk-was-a-commie-so-much-the-better-for-commies/710296/18 "2015-01-20T19:18:03Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > King was too smart to be a Communist or a Communist ally. He was trying to change public opinion in the United States and he knew that any association with Communism would destroy his mission. So while Communists repeatedly offered King support, he always made sure to keep as much distance from them as he could. Smart for many reasons. If they had ever somehow taken over he would have been sent to a labor camp in Nebraska almost immediately if not shot outright. Communism has no place for idealists once the revolutionary phase is over. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Second\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@The\_Second\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Second_Stone)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2015, 7:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-mlk-was-a-commie-so-much-the-better-for-commies/710296/19 "2015-01-21T07:04:23Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > Smart for many reasons. If they had ever somehow taken over he would have been sent to a labor camp in Nebraska almost immediately if not shot outright. Communism has no place for idealists once the revolutionary phase is over. It has no place for competing leadership figures and models. It is sustained on the ideology of the true believers among the masses and the ones that go along in leadership. There is no room for Trotsky, but plenty of room for Khrushchev, Brezhnev, Litvinov and Beria. Even Gorbachev. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2015, 4:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-mlk-was-a-commie-so-much-the-better-for-commies/710296/20 "2015-01-21T16:04:54Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > I think the OP is missing the big picture. No, King was not a Communist (and if Hoover had evidence King was a Communist he wouldn’t have sealed the records - he would have sent it out to every newspaper in the country). But the Communists didn’t support King because they felt any real affinity for his beliefs. The Communists offered their support to King out of their own self-interests. They saw that America’s racial problems were one of our greatest vulnerabilities - it was an area in which we were on the wrong side. So Communists pushed for racial equality not because they particularly cared about the issue but just because they knew it was an issue where they could embarrass the United States. How do you know they did not care about the issue? I daresay the Communists and ex-Communists who supported King – Stanley Levison, Jack O’Dell, Bayard Rustin – cared about it a great deal. Especially Rustin, who was black himself. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-mlk-was-a-commie-so-much-the-better-for-commies/710296.md?page=2)