Posted on 01/24/2003 2:12:52 PM PST by Tailgunner Joe
Alger Hiss never joined it either, and he certainly publicly disavowed Marxism.
Why would anyone believe a word King had to say about his political allegiances and convictions when he was willing to lie to his doctoral committee and steal other peoples' work?
King openly espoused all the talking points which the CPUSA espoused - Soviet-style "full employment laws", unilateral disarmament, etc.
If it walks like a duck and talks like a duck . . .
From 1955 to 1960, Martin Luther King's associate, advisor, and personal secretary was one Bayard Rustin. In 1936 Rustin joined the Young Communist League at New York City College. Convicted of draft-dodging, he went to prison for two years in 1944. On January 23, 1953 the "Los Angeles Times" reported his conviction and sentencing to jail for 60 days for lewd vagrancy and homosexual perversion. Rustin attended the 16th Convention of the Communist Party, USA in February, 1957. One month later, he and King founded the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, or SCLC for short. The president of the SCLC was Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. The vice-president of the SCLC was the Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth, who was also the president of an identified Communist front known as the Southern Conference Educational Fund, an organization whose field director, a Mr. Carl Braden, was simultaneously a national sponsor of the Fair Play for Cuba Committee, of which you may have heard. The program director of the SCLC was the Reverend Andrew Young, in more recent years Jimmy Carter's ambassador to the UN and mayor of Atlanta. Young, by the way, was trained at the Highlander Folk School, previously mentioned.
Soon after returning from a trip to Moscow in 1958, Rustin organized the first of King's famous marches on Washington. The official organ of the Communist Party, "The Worker,- - openly declared the march to be a Communist project. Although he left King's employ as secretary in 1961, Rustin was called upon by King to be second in command of the much larger march on Washington which took place on August 28, 1963.
Bayard Rustin's replacement in 1961 as secretary and advisor to King was Jack O'Dell, also known as Hunter Pitts O'Dell. According to official records, in 1962 Jack O'Dell was a member of the National Committee of the Communist Party, USA. He had been listed as a Communist Party member as early as 1956. O'Dell was also given the job of acting executive director for SCLC activities for the entire Southeast, according to the St. Louis "Globe-Democrat - -of October 26, 1962. At that time, there were still some patriots in the press corps, and word of O'Dell's party membership became known.
The man himself is not important, only his words are.
good point
See:
Newsflash! Attention Neo-Conservatives: Martin Luther King Supported Affirmative Action
I'm sure the Communists thought that King's death would bring a final race war, followed by the collapse of America, they were counting on. But what it did was freeze him in time when the movement was pretending all it wanted was "equality". King has become a huge weapon against affirmative action. Irony.
The good news for you, though, is that it doesn't look like MLK Jr's reputation can get any higher. I suspect the personality-oriented aspects of the holiday will decline, and King's birthday will be commemorated more as a tribute to justice and integration and not to one man.
So what? I do.
So go after them. Its stupid to pick on the dead guy.
I've joined this forum as a African American- and a liberal. With that being known I would like to say that I knew about King's adultery plagiarism and everything else. But before you all try to say how terrible he was you must understand why King is held in such high acclaim. He was seen by the whites in power- republican and democrat as a reasonable black leader- he wanted a change but he would only offend the most conservative ultra racist whites. Many blacks then and now believe King to be a Uncle Tom. Whites and blacks alike liked the man because his main goal was to get in the master's house- why do you think the same thing hasn't happened for Malcolm X- he was too radical- for all whites and most blacks. But before you condemn King you should realize all heroes in American lore are mytholized- there's not a single white, black, or otherwise hero who's misdeeds aren't overlooked. Jefferson the so-called greatest American was a slave holder- Lincoln did NOT care about the slaves- Jesse Jackson is an adulterer- The Bush family stands hand in hand with the house of Saud- Woodrow Wilson was a racist- Helen Keller a socialist. i have tried to list liberal and conservative "heroes" to make the point America, and Americans are always in the process of hero making. Just because a certain "hero" doesn't fit your fancy- that's fine but don't deny the facts- all these people are human and all humans are flawed. Show me a flawless individual- we might be dead because we'd be looking at Jesus. I have a problem with anyone liberal or conservative who won't state the truth. Yes MLK was a flawed man who is canonized in America- but so is everyone else who has a holiday or statue in their honor. And remember- Republicans and Democrats alike praise King.
In an era where virtually no public figure dare speak forthrightly on the subject, and even many self-styled conservatives praise Martin Luther King, the fact remains that the only American to be honored with a national holiday does not deserve the accolades he received posthumously. He was a leftist who opposed the Vietnam War and, as this article points out, supported socialist policies and associated with Communists. Furthermore, his personal life was far from exemplary, as this article suggests.
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