An obvious question to ask on King Day. I’m interested in one aspect in particular (but feel free to add your own to the discussion): Toward the end of his life, King was shifting his focus from race to class. He started a Poor People’s Campaign, with a big march on Washington planned, to demand an “economic bill of rights.” It kind of fizzled out after his death, and nothing of the kind with such a high profile has since emerged in America. (Nowadays, “populism” in American politics means focusing on middle-class and to some lesser degree working-class concerns; anybody below that gets ignored.) Would that have gone any differently if King had lived?
If what I’ve read is correct, they probably would have taken his doctorate back for plagiarism.
But my hypothetical leaves out the coma. 
I believe the more success he found, the more he would be discredited. It is just the way the system reacts to change. Programs such as COINTELPRO and well-funded campaigns against his cause from those of the elite class would find something to use against him. Things such as alleged infidelity and the above cited plagiarism (I am not familiar with that charge) would undoubtedly be examples of this. While he would have gone on to be an even more successful civil rights leader, his star would not have risen as high as we now view it. I guess I am just cynical.
He would be denigrated much like all the so-called “black” leaders are today.
. . . Is this a whoosh?
No. Why?
He’d be right there with Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton. His cheating on his wife would be front page news.
I think monstro is right. He would be villified and caricaturized by the Rush Limbaughs of the world, and the fact that he was a human being would have eventually have eroded his iconic status until he died of old age, at which point he would be lionized all over again.
The “so-called ‘black’” part raised suspicion.
It’s the “leader” part that the demagogues really like to tout. Black people are all mindless lemmings who can’t form an opinion without looking to Al Sharpton or Jesse Jackson. Targeting “black leaders” is a tactic utilized to dismiss opinions of the black community as being illegitimate and controlled. It’s also a simple way to attack black people in general by pretending they’re just attacking these so-called “black leaders.”
Note that they sometimes try to put Barack Obama into this category too, althoughl he is plainly of a much different generation and temperament. At times he will be accused of sounding like a “black preacher,” for instance, even though he has never sounded anything of the sort.
If he hadn’t been assassinated, he would have just turned 71 on Friday.
Hmm . . Not so old, nowadays, especially not in public life.
Oops, sorry. 81.
My guess is we’d feel unbelievably bad about having buried him.
Does anybody have any opinions about how the Poor People’s Campaign (see OP) would have gone if King had survived to lead it?