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Comment by thewarrior | Hacker News Reader

MLK was never popular he was considered too left wing, too radical and socialist before he was appropriated and then turned into a mild mannered reformer.

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> It's important to remember that Martin Luther King Jr.'s career did not end with "I have a dream" speech. He went on. He went on to extend his concerns and activism. And as he did, his popularity and reputation among northern liberal declined. He turned to protest against the Viet Nam war, correctly. He was assassinated when he was supporting the sanitary workers strike. And in fact, he was on his way to organize a poor people's movement. By that time, he was reaching class issues, not just racist Alabama sherriffs. And, as he turned to those issues, his reputation declined. I suspect, if you listen to the speeches today, about Martin Luther King, you won't hear a lot about that aspect.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/interview-transcript-noam_b_4...

By the WASP establishment. He was contemporaneous with Malcolm X. It's important to acknowledge that then as now, he was (and is) considered far too collaborationist and conservative by many of the people he purported to represent.

A considerably difficult situation for leadership. Think of all the pressures from every direction, from all the voices, all centered on one person. Dr. King had no power beyond a voice - no elected office, no billions of dollars, no control of mass media, etc. And then holding it all together, guiding it, actually implementing strategies through it - and succeeding.

Although MLK is typically taught today as a Great Orator, his gifts as an organizer, social critic, and leader were probably more important to the long-term trajectory of the civil rights movement. Which is saying something, since he was an exceptionally effective orator.

If you're curious, the first portion of his "Letter from a Birmingham Jail" is essentially a case study in organizing and guiding a disparate social movement.

Yes, one of the most revelatory pieces I've ever read.

(When I wrote that King had 'no power but a voice', I didn't mean 'no power but oration'; I meant that all King could do was speak to people - individually, in organzing meetings, publicly, etc. - and try to persuade them.)

The establishment still preferred him to Malcolm X.

His turn as a “mild mannered reformer” is pure whitewashing (pun intended) of history. He was vocally radical and criticized heavily for it during his lifetime. It’s only after his assassination that people have decided to politely ignore his more pointed criticisms of capitalism and the military.

Here’s a choice quote he gave in 1967 in his “Three Evils of Society” speech.

> Again we have deluded ourselves into believing the myth that Capitalism grew and prospered out of the protestant ethic of hard word and sacrifice, the fact is that Capitalism was build on the exploitation and suffering of black slaves and continues to thrive on the exploitation of the poor – both black and white, both here and abroad.

Not exactly mild mannered stuff.

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