The popular image of Martin Luther King, Jr. is that of a “safe,” moderate civil rights leader, as contrasted with the unseemly radicalism of Malcolm X and the black nationalist groups. This sanitized version of King, revered every January, scarcely resembles the real man, who was a revolutionary in the best and worst senses of the word. Discussing the real Martin Luther King would force us to examine the unpleasant issues of American militarism and the social consequences of capitalism.
Most hagiographies of King leave a gap between 1965 and 1968, his most radical period. It was during this time that he stridently denounced the current form of capitalism, advocating redistribution of wealth not only on the basis of race, in the form of hiring quotas and reparations for slavery, but on the basis of economic class. Had King lived through the 70s and 80s, he would have been scarcely different in his politics from Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton; in fact, he probably would have stood to the left of them.
King spoke powerfully against U.S. militarism, calling his government the world’s biggest purveyor of violence. His speech “Beyond Vietnam” was widely scorned as sympathizing with Communism, a common accusation against those with insufficient nationalist bloodlust.
Contrary to popular perception, King was not of the Christian faith in any traditional sense. In his collegiate writings, he denied the divinity of Christ, the virgin birth, and the bodily resurrection of Christ. As St. Paul said, “And if Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain.” King’s Christianity was hollow as a religion; he followed Christ only in matters of ethics, and even then very selectively. By his own confession, he pursued ministry only as a means to preach his social gospel.
If we were to judge King “by the content of his character”, we should find alongside his saintly commitment to non-violence some evils that cannot be dismissed as mere lapses of judgment. His insatiable adulterous appetites were so perverse, that even the philanderous Lyndon Johnson was shocked by the “hypocritical preacher.” While the full details of his carnal sins will not be known until FBI tapes are unsealed in 2027, we already have ample evidence of another dimension of his deep dishonesty, in the form of systematic plagiarism. His doctoral thesis contained entire pages of verbatim copying; this egregious violation of academic ethics would have resulted in a revocation of the degree if we were speaking of anyone else. Plagiarism remained a lifelong habit, and numerous writings and speeches, including the famous “I have a dream” speech, were systematically plagiarized, far beyond the innocent uncited paraphrase.
Despite these personal failings, King’s message of human dignity, racial equality, and non-violence does not lose any of its luster. Even if historical reality compels us to move beyond the false idol of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., who was really neither a reverend nor a doctor, nor a particularly honest man, we will nonetheless find in his works, original or otherwise, ideas that challenge the legitimacy of our social structure, and force us to address questions far more disturbing than the innocuous banalities that greet us each January.