Is Ann Coulter Right About the Civil Rights Movement and Martin Luther King?

http://www.foxnews.com ^ | 6/`6/11 | Juan Williams

[BCrago66]

In her new best-seller Ann Coulter breaks with the politically correct history of the civil rights movement by openly criticizing Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.

The always provocative Coulter makes the case that King’s embrace of mass street protests, specifically breaking the law by staging marches without permits and gaining public sympathy by purposely putting children in the way of vicious dogs and blasts from power water hoses used by rabid segregationists, is a prime example of how liberals throughout history get their way by using angry, inflammatory mob behavior.

[ken5050]

Well said, my FRiend...Coulter is waay off base on this one.

I was a teenager back then. Already conservative, I recognized that then my NYC was just a racist as the south, though it wasn't as institutionalized. The turning point for me was when the three kids from NYC ( sadly, I can't remember their names now) were murdered. I realized that the southern system was rotten, evil, and had to be overturned,a nd they woudl not do it themselves. So sadly, but true, it was was the murder of three WHITE kids who showed me the true evils of racism.

[Mila]

“The turning point for me was when the three kids from NYC ( sadly, I can’t remember their names now) were murdered.”

Are you thinking of James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mississippi_civil_rights_workers_murders

[ken5050]

Yup....thanks..

[LS]

Well, I was in Mississippi and Alabama in the early 1970s and racism was VERY strong then. Yes, there were settings where groups could mingle-—music, in particular. But one my pastor friends, a nationally known black minister, STILL couldn’t preach in various churches down there until about the 1980s. So, no, it wasn’t all “outside agitators.” The people I knew and played with were born and raised in Alabama and Mississippi.

[LS]

Good point. And if the Republicans had really done it right-—on both sides (not just siding with blacks because they were black and cleaning up the corruption and insisting on full legal equality) in the 1870s, the Democrats never would have been able to destroy blacks in this country the way they have.

[LS]

Yeah, absolutely. Even Paul Johnson, who wrote about the hypocrisies of intellectuals in his book of the same name . . . had a mistress.

[Doulos1]

The “racist states” you speak of were all controlled by the Democrats, right. What history books teach that? What black students have been taught those facts?
The KKK were the militant arm of the Democrat party.
Bob Byrd was good example. Read some of his earlier remarks about the “negro” to use his words.
The media is what gives conservatives a bad name, and it sounds like you can’t distinguish facts from fiction.

Ann Coulter is brilliant and fearless. She has earned her stripes. How many best sellers are on your list?

[Sir_Ed]

Paul Johnson was an ADULTERER??

Wow, I would have never guessed that.

Although I know two very conservative Christian men who both cheated on their wives and ultimately left them, and I know one guy who cheated on his wife and was murdered by his lover’s husband...

People are so, so foolish sometimes.

Ed

[wardaddy]

King was a socialist and way overrated and surely no conservative icon like loony Beck likes to claim

And I knew this...as did Magnus, Buckley and Barry G long before Ann was in her first training bra

Coulter is a mixed bag...her screeches against Palin are shameful and her love of Mitt...no thanks

Btw...civil rights acts suck too...why do pc conservatives today act like they never met one they don’t love

They were opposed by our heroes for the most part

[Bob]

Sometimes Coulter can be an idiot.

Thank you for not resorting to an ad hominem attack. Your presentation of facts to counter her statements is truly awe-inspiring.

[wardaddy]

Chaney was black...not a white Jewish kid from up north

I’m more with Beagle here...I too was around then and I can promise you that Freedom Riders were hardly conservatives and almost all the black leaders from that era have proven to be lifelong race hustlers and believers in wealth redistribution and thought of America as one long series of crimes against minorities and even given Kings platitude laden speeches and untimely death there is no evidence to think he one bit different especially as he had joined the anti war freaks after Americas love affair with the Civil Rights movement had waned..it was a stepping stone to keep him and his goals in the spotlight..he was in memphis to di union work when he was killed..why must conservatives embrace such a fellow..not me

I find the kids getting killed more compelling

I actually did a Readers Digest oral report on this tragedy all emotional and what not in 8th grade in 1970 and was ridiculed a bit

Needless to say..my liberal sympathies for the civil rights movement have long since evaporated after it’s excesses and the reverse racism and violence I’ve endured since

I just got in from 6000 miles out west..its no wonder everyone likes to lecture us about black people and race friction....they have none..

On a route from nashville to montana to vegas to santa fe to dallas to home
I saw maybe 20 black people after Kansas city...we would remark when we saw some touristing like us

Its easy to judge when you love in a bubble

And yes NYC is/was segregated in the 80s when i lived there

Race is an issue anywhere all over the planet...it’s just the American south its like front lines here...but pray tell how does that explain all the non southern black riots post 50 years and continuing

Race redress should have stopped at endorsing voting rights..period...caput

Taking it so far beyond that had opened the door to everything that is destroying us now
And aside from a few social conservatives(racists to pc folks) in both parties who tried to stop it...both parties are to blame

[LS]

“How many best-sellers are on your list?” Well, two in six years, including simply the best-selling U.S. History survey in the last decade next to Zinn (but rapidly catching him).

And, yes, we do mention that the racist states of the confederacy were all Dem states and that ONLY the Dem party protected slavery. In fact, that was why it was founded. And I don’t care how many books Coulter sells. Olbermann sells books too-—but when you’re wrong, you’re wrong.

[LS]

“How many best-sellers are on your list?” Well, two in six years, including simply the best-selling U.S. History survey in the last decade next to Zinn (but rapidly catching him).

And, yes, we do mention that the racist states of the confederacy were all Dem states and that ONLY the Dem party protected slavery. In fact, that was why it was founded. And I don’t care how many books Coulter sells. Olbermann sells books too-—but when you’re wrong, you’re wrong.

[Doulos1]

You say she is not wrong, I say you are.

[LS]

You’ve already been proven wrong with your silly question about how many best-sellers I have. If Coulter thinks King was using “liberal” tactics to defeat racism, then she’s not as smart as I thought. King had flaws, but his genius was in seeing that America was fundamentally good.

[Doulos1]

Genius? Any Christian adult would know that America is/was fundamentally good. Genius? LOL.
King was a plagiarizing fraud who could not control his
sexual urges for women, not his wife.
Reverend? A bought title for credibility.
MLK birth name Michael King.
Stealing credibility seemed his M.O.
Ann nails it again.

[Beagle8U]

Yes, you are talking the 70’s, I was talking about the the late 50’s and early 60’s.

Everything changed when the race baiters and agitators stirred up a bunch crap and started riots and marches. From that point on, people that got along fine before were convinced they had to hate each other.

[LS]

Ann’s a fool on this one, and you’re showing yourself to be little more perceptive. For those who can’t admit to the positive points of someone like King, well, there’s not much to say. And many of those Christian adults were the same people who wouldn’t let a black person in a white bathroom. And to deny that makes one even more foolish.

[Doulos1]

The “Christian adults” were racists Democrats who were in power in the South. Does Bull Connor ring any bells.?He was the stereo typical White Southern DEMOCRAT.
Republicans freed and fought for the Black folk.
Democrats fought against civil rights at every corner.
Don’t be hatin’ on Ann.

[LS]

I'm not following you here at all. What Coulter is criticizing the fact that King employed liberal mass-demonstration models. I'm saying he was correct in doing so, because he understood that the majority of Americans, including SOME in the South, were not racist, and that by causing the police and the Bull Conners to attack them unjustly, the rest of America would be outraged.

Now, either Coulter is right and King was wrong in thinking that Americans as a whole weren't racist and that as a moral country, we would do something about oppression, or she is wrong and King right.

I absolutely AGREE with you that it was Republicans who fought to free blacks and, for about 10 years, to ensure that they had civil rights. They gave up that fight too soon, I think, and it cost them---but that's a different debate and you can argue that no amount of force at that time would have made a majority of southern whites go along with even the most basic civil rights for blacks. King did that by exposing the racism of (most) Southern whites and forcing America to live up to its values.

I AGREE that Dems fought MOST civil rights (but not all). Northern Dems certainly did not.

Perhaps you should read our chapter on this in "A Patriot's History of the United States."