# MLK's status as a hero **URL:** \ **Category:** Cecil's Columns/Staff Reports\ **Created:** [January 21, 2009, 1:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mlks-status-as-a-hero/482242 "2009-01-21T01:38:20Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Justice\_for\_all](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ccd318/32.png) [@Justice\_for\_all](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Justice_for_all)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2009, 1:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mlks-status-as-a-hero/482242/1 "2009-01-21T01:38:20Z")
It if difficult to concur with Cecil’s conclusion that MLK was BOTH a great American as well as a fraud and a hypocrite. When someone’s life needs a perpetual cover up to continue an apparent myth of nobility, there is a problem. The information from Abernathy reveals MLK as a contemptuous man. Not merely having feet of clay, but a blasphemer of what he openly espoused, but privately disparaged. It saddened me to read these things about MLK, but knowing the truth is better than a pleasant lie, isn’t it? Justice for All ---
**Author:** ![hawthorne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/c89c15/32.png) [@hawthorne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hawthorne)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2009, 11:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mlks-status-as-a-hero/482242/2 "2009-01-21T11:34:59Z")
It’s useful to provide a link to Cecil’s column to which you refer: [Was Martin Luther King, Jr. a plagiarist?](http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/2449/was-martin-luther-king-jr-a-plagiarist) King was certainly contemptuous of bigotry (and by the time of his death, confident that of its retreat, having “[been to the mountaintop](http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/mlkivebeentothemountaintop.htm)”), but from what I understand he was pretty compassionate towards bigots. Or did you mean _contemptible_? It does seem like it. For what it’s worth, I agree with Cecil’s conclusion: > [@](#): > > As every reasonable observer has commented, neither King’s sexual wanderings nor his scholarly misdeeds detract from his core achievement. By continually publicizing black grievances while putting a palatable, nonviolent face on resistance to jim crow, King paved the way for the landmark civil rights legislation of the 1960s and a major turnaround in public attitudes about race. But there’s no getting around the fact that he was a complex and deeply flawed man. Was he a great American? No argument here. Was he a fraud and a hypocrite? He was that, too. ---
**Author:** ![Sophistry\_and\_Illusion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b3f665/32.png) [@Sophistry\_and\_Illusion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sophistry_and_Illusion)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2009, 11:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mlks-status-as-a-hero/482242/3 "2009-01-21T11:58:37Z")
I think people confuse the terms “hero” and “saint”. ---
**Author:** ![FriarTed](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/friarted/32/1052_2.png) [@FriarTed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FriarTed)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2009, 3:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mlks-status-as-a-hero/482242/4 "2009-01-21T15:18:01Z")
He was a plagiarist & adulterer & fellow traveler with Commies & a man who professes faith in God/Jesus, stood for human rights & went to jail & was ultimate killed for them. Our Founders were a motley crew of elitists & Illuminists & philanderers & slaveholders & idealists & theocrats & infidels. God bless 'em all. ---
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2009, 3:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mlks-status-as-a-hero/482242/5 "2009-01-21T15:34:55Z")
> [@FriarTed](#): > > Our Founders were a motley crew of elitists & Illuminists & philanderers & slaveholders & idealists & theocrats & infidels. And sometimes all (or most: Jefferson) at once! Saints aren’t even all that great of people, if you know more about them than is written in a child’s hagiography. ---
**Author:** ![FriarTed](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/friarted/32/1052_2.png) [@FriarTed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FriarTed)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2009, 3:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mlks-status-as-a-hero/482242/6 "2009-01-21T15:45:04Z")
> [@dropzone](#): > > And sometimes all (or most: Jefferson) at once! > > Saints aren’t even all that great of people, if you know more about them than is written in a child’s hagiography. Yeah, Jefferson wasn’t a theocrat, BUT even he wasn’t as strict a Seperationist as prevails on the SDMB. ---
**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 21, 2009, 4:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mlks-status-as-a-hero/482242/7 "2009-01-21T16:42:04Z")
The only people who are entitled to disparage King are those who have fewer flaws and more virtues. And there’s not many like that. ---
**Author:** ![TruCelt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/trucelt/32/523_2.png) [@TruCelt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TruCelt)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2009, 5:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mlks-status-as-a-hero/482242/8 "2009-01-21T17:05:41Z")
I think that if they had lived, both Dr. King and President Kennedy would eventually have been brought down by revelations about their extra-marital misconduct. Lincoln too, come to think of it. Hoover never married, but there are some who contend it was because he couldn’t find the right dress. Great men are still men. . . great women are still women. . . subject to every human illness, temptation and failing. Great people have greater than usual opportunities to act upon their temptations and failings, and great than usual likelihood of being caught in the act. I don’t excuse it, but fortunately great ideas are not dependent upon the perfection of their proponent’s life story for their veracity. It is also possible for great people to be men and women of intergrity and self-discipline. Let’s hope that Mr. Obama’s nicorette addiction will be the worst personal failing we encounter. ---
**Author:** ![Lakai](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/9de0a6/32.png) [@Lakai](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lakai)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2009, 5:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mlks-status-as-a-hero/482242/9 "2009-01-21T17:16:40Z")
> [@Justice\_for\_all](#): > > It if difficult to concur with Cecil’s conclusion that MLK was BOTH a great American as well as a fraud and a hypocrite. When someone’s life needs a perpetual cover up to continue an apparent myth of nobility, there is a problem. The problem is with a public that won’t take an argument seriously unless it is coming from a saint. ---
**Author:** ![Threadkiller](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/aca169/32.png) [@Threadkiller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Threadkiller)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2009, 1:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mlks-status-as-a-hero/482242/10 "2009-01-22T01:53:51Z")
I really only have a problem with the the Dr. part. The standard action for plagiarism on a doctrinal dissertation is revocation of the degree. That being said, it does not diminish from his work on civil rights. ---
**Author:** ![John\_W.Kennedy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_w.kennedy/32/1031_2.png) [@John\_W.Kennedy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_W.Kennedy)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2009, 9:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mlks-status-as-a-hero/482242/11 "2009-01-22T21:08:38Z")
> [@Threadkiller](#): > > I really only have a problem with the the Dr. part. The standard action for plagiarism on a doctrinal dissertation is revocation of the degree. Boston University expressly declined to do so, saying that his work remained “an intelligent contribution to scholarship”. In any case, of course, he did not become a professional scholar, so it’s all really moot. ---
**Author:** ![Sophistry\_and\_Illusion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b3f665/32.png) [@Sophistry\_and\_Illusion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sophistry_and_Illusion)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2009, 8:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mlks-status-as-a-hero/482242/12 "2009-01-23T08:03:00Z")
> [@John\_W.Kennedy](#): > > Boston University expressly declined to do so, saying that his work remained “an intelligent contribution to scholarship”. > > In any case, of course, he did not become a professional scholar, so it’s all really moot. Aw, we were going to leave \*\*Threadkiller’s \*\*post as the last one. Seemed appropriate. 😛 Realistically, it would be politically infeasible for BU to revoke MLK’s PhD; I can’t imagine the committee that was formed to look into it really would have recommended that. ---
**Author:** ![Zoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/a4c791/32.png) [@Zoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zoe)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2009, 11:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mlks-status-as-a-hero/482242/13 "2009-01-23T11:19:04Z")
I don’t think that Cecil established _how_ King was a hypocrite. He seems to have established that Dr. King was sexually active outside of his marriage, but not that he claimed otherwise. The comments about guilty white liberals seem uncharacteristly snide, unscholarly and speculative.