Replies

You are conflating two entirely different matters. Let me put this in Q&A form for clarity.

1. Did MLK Jr. associate with known or suspected Communist Party members?

YES. Examples include Stanley David Levison—a friend and confidant of King, and Hunter Pitts O’Dell.

2. What impact, exactly, did such “Communists” have on King?

Not very much. FBI files on Levison and on King do not reflect that King ever considered adopting violent revolution or creating a separate “Negro Soviet Republic” inside the U.S. (the Communist Party position for many decades).

3. Why did King accept advice and counsel from people like Levison and O’Dell?

Because, in politics, as Newt Gingrich has pointed out recently, groups which face systematic discrimination, repression (especially when implemented by governmental entities) accept support from anybody who wants to address their legitimate grievances.

4. What did the Birch Society propose we do about the grave social and economic problems faced by the African-American community?

Absolutely nothing! Instead, it associated itself with the very actors who were responsible for creating, implementing, and defending the entire Jim Crow system in our southern states. In fact, several JBS National Council members were life-long segregationists (aka racists). EVEN WORSE, the JBS circulated FALSE and INFLAMMATORY statements about the origins of our civil rights movement and about ALL of our national civil rights leaders and organizations.

5. What was a correct analysis of the status of our African American countrymen-—particularly in the 1950’s and 1960’s?

George Schuyler. a JBS member, and conservative African American columnist and author accurately summarized the situation in a 1961 column when he wrote the following:

“The White Citizens Council which has branches or cells everywhere, controls by terror such states as Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Florida, South Carolina, and to a lesser extent, Virginia…It has defied and disrupted the operation of the laws of the land. It has used threats and vicious economic reprisals…It has become a legal arm of Mississippi’s Government.” [4/22/61 Schuyler column in Pittsburgh PA Courier]

6. What was the JBS attitude toward White Citizens Councils?

The JBS warmly welcomed Citizens Councils officials and members (and supporters) into the JBS as members, as JBS chapter leaders, as JBS Cooordinators, and as National Council members. EVEN WORSE, the JBS circulated arguments which originated with white supremacists.

7. What was the position of the JBS regarding our civil rights movement leaders and organizations?

The JBS believed and disseminated the false and bigoted predicate of the white supremacist movement in our country. In August 1965, the JBS placed an advertisement in many newspapers around our country entitled “What’s Wrong With Civil Rights?” which contained this statement:

“For the civil rights movement in the United States with all of its growing agitation and riots and bitterness, and insidious steps toward the appearance of civil war, has not been infiltrated by the Communists, as you now frequently hear. It has been deliberately and almost wholly created by the Communists patiently building up to this present stage for more than thirty years.”

As Robert Welch told his membership in the June 1965 JBS Bulletin:

“Our task must be simply to make clear that the movement known as ‘civil rights’ is Communist-plotted, Communist-controlled, and in fact...serves only Communist purposes.”

8. What was the FBI position regarding our civil rights movement?

J. Edgar Hoover made the following observation in 1964:

“Let me emphasize that the American civil rights movement is not, and has never been dominated by the communists—because the overwhelming majority of civil rights leaders in this country, both Negro and white, have recognized and rejected communism as a menace to the freedoms of all.”
[J. Edgar Hoover speech, 12/12/64, Our Heritage of Greatness, pg 7 - Hoover speech before Pennsylvania Society and the Society of Pennsylvania Women; bold emphasis in original document on “not” and “never”]

In November 1966, Hoover received an inquiry from a self-identified JBS member who saw the above quote in a letter-to-the-editor of his local newspaper and he wanted to know if the quote was an accurate reflection of Hoover’s judgment both in 1964 and 1966. Hoover replied affirmatively and concluded: “This position remains essentially unchanged today.” [HQ file 62-104401, serial #3021, 11/15/66 Hoover reply to incoming Bircher inquiry]

Also see following Hoover comments :
“It would be absurd to suggest that the aspirations of Negroes for equality are communist inspired. This is demonstrably not true…” [J. Edgar Hoover speech, Faith In Freedom, 12/4/63, page 6]

“In general, legitimate civil rights organizations have been successful in excluding Communists, although a few have received covert counseling from them and have even accepted them as members…The CP is not satisfied with this situation and is continually striving to infiltrate the civil rights movement at every level. “ [J. Edgar Hoover, U.S. News and World Report, 11/1/65, page 46]

“It is no secret that one of the bitterest disappointments to communistic efforts in this Nation has been their failure to lure our Negro citizens into the party. Despite every type of propaganda boomed at our Nation’s Negro citizens, they have never succumbed to the party’s saccharine promises of a Communist ‘Utopia’. This generation and generations to come for many years owe a tremendous debt to our Negro citizens who have consistently refused to surrender their freedoms for the tyranny of communism.” J. Edgar Hoover testimony before U.S. Senate Internal Security Subcommittee, 01/17/60, reprinted in March 1960 FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin, page 7]

9. BOTTOM-LINE QUESTION:

What contribution did the Birch Society and similar groups make toward resolving our social, economic, and political problems during the 1960’s?

NONE WHATSOEVER....Instead, the JBS (and others) allied themselves with the very local, state, and national politicians and organizations which sought to perpetuate the injustices which Bircher George Schuyler accurately described in his 1961 column.