Posted on 10/16/2009 3:39:10 PM PDT by FrontPageMag.com
As much as I hate to take issue with my colleagues here, it is hyperbolic to call Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. a “conservative.” It is true King was no New Left radical. He had little use for Malcolm X and in his “Letter from the Birmingham Jail” he famously denounced “the hatred and despair of the black nationalist.” But King’s views before his antiwar speech were left-of-center, for his day or ours. King believed in a guaranteed annual income, opposed Vietnam well before 1967, and, “content of their character” notwithstanding, voiced support for some form of racial preferences.
Perhaps most to the point is King’s support for the government’s guaranteeing everyone a minimum — but not minimal — salary…
King wrote in Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community? “I am now convinced…the solution to poverty is to abolish it directly by a now widely discussed measure: the guaranteed income.” But “to ensure that the guaranteed income operates as a consistently progressive measure” it “must be pegged to the median income of society, not the lowest levels of income” and “must automatically increase as the total social income grows.” So far, his proposal was not materially different from Huey Long’s Share Our Wealth program. This was from his later works, but he had voiced support for “a modified form of socialism” for some time. While accepting his Nobel Peace Prize in 1964, King told the press, “We feel we have much to learn from Scandinavia’s democratic socialist tradition and from the manner in which you have overcome many of the social and economic problems that still plague far more powerful and affluent nations.”
It’s somewhat cynical to attribute King’s opposition to the war only to the flagging fortunes of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. The SCLC went through dark days, especially following King’s unsuccessful Chicago campaign and seeming inability to crack northern cities, but King had spoken out against the war years before his “Beyond Vietnam” speech. In March 1965, he offered to write a letter to all parties, including the Soviet Union, to come to a peace negotiation, and he asked President Johnson to halt the bombing. He added: “The war in Vietnam is accomplishing nothing…We certainly are not winning the war.” For two years, he moderated himself, mindful of his standing in Washington. According to numerous biographers, King’s decided to take a more strident role on Vietnam after seeing a photo essay entitled “The Children of Vietnam” contained in the January 1967 issue of Ramparts.
By 1968, he had climbed so far out on a ledge that he was approached about running as a third party candidate through Stanley Levison (who did, in fact, have Communist associates, although some question his relationship with them). William Sloane Coffin, who was by then already infamous, and perennial Socialist Party candidate Norman Thomas broached the topic to Levison, and King termed the prospect “an interesting idea.” Although he turned them down, King entertained offers seriously enough to concern LBJ (which, by 1968, took precious little effort). King’s proposed running mate, Dr. Benjamin Spock, would run for president in 1972 as the candidate of the People’s Party/Peace and Freedom Party.
King is today regarded as “conservative” primarily for three things: not being a Communist, not being Malcolm X, and declaring men should be judged “not by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.” This criterion has rightly been cited as incompatible with racial preference programs like Affirmative Action. However, King also voiced support for such programs. One of the pundits at the invaluable Hot Air blog has collected several quotations showing King’s support for race preferences:
In all, King’s political views were left-of-center in any context. However, he also emphasized the importance of family, work, determination, and (yes) faith. He once said, “If a man is called to be a street sweeper, he should sweep streets as Michelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed music, or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say, here lives a great street sweeper who did his job well.” Blacks liberated from Jim Crow are no better off if they neglect their intellect or development because cultivating it would mean “acting white”; indeed, the primary thrust of the civil rights movement of his day was gaining access to equal education funds. Politics aside, he championed self-reliance in a way that is today thought of as “conservative.”
Tearing down the edifice of Jim Crow and segregation was itself a profoundly anti-statist move. The state power necessary to enforce the Negro Codes hardly result in a laissez-faire institution.
The principles of integration, for which King died, are best preserved by conservatives. His color-blind society is the bane of those who anointed themselves with his blood but have sought to keep the various components of the Rainbow Coalition as distinct, and powerless, as possible. MLK’s dream was a world where skin color was irrelevant; for the Left, it is the only relevant factor. William Bennett summed it up best: “If you said in 1968 that you should judge people by the content of their character, not the color of their skin, that you should be color-blind, you were a liberal. If you say it now, you are a conservative. It is in that sense that Martin Luther King today is a conservative.”
King called America to give non-whites a full share in the American dream, always believing what was wrong with America could be cured by what was right with America. He wrote that America’s founders were great men in some respects, e.g. their support of the Bill of Rights, but not great in others, such as slavery. I feel that way about Martin Luther King. I agree, in other words, with Fr. Richard John Neuhaus, “Then and now, I think it possible and necessary to make a crucial, albeit not unambiguous, distinction between the very broken earthen vessel and the treasure of truth that vessel contained and so powerfully communicated.”
Originally posted here.
Oh, what a tangled web we weave…yet, at least we can say Dr. King had integrity about the American Dream; unlike the ethnic pimps who prefer tossed salad of Balkanization.
King was was a fiscal liberal, but a social conservative.
He was no saint, he was not the perfect conservative, but he had a lot of courage. I admired the guy and still do.
Some people watch from the sidelines. Some people stand up and step up.
John F. Kennedy was no conservative either, but, I would take him over about 99% of the so called Republican/Conservatives of 2009. It’s all relative.
Milton Friedman also supported a type of guaranteed annual income in lieu of all other welfare programs and social security.
He believed it would save billions of dollars since the bureaucracy that goes along with those programs sucks up a good deal of the money meant for lower income people.
I understand that despite his real beliefs, at one time he waas a registered Republican
Yes, he was. Of course, most blacks were Republicans until the mid-late ‘60s.
If I remember right, MLK said he voted for Eisenhower in 1956.
I’ve never, until this article, read anything about MLK being a conservative. Republican? Yes. Conservative? No.
Problem is, Republicans are generally considered to be conservative, except for those who really follow politics.
Something folks who push for a minimum wage don't seem to take into account is the way the folks who have this guaranteed wage will spend it. Sure, some will spend it wisely for their families, but some will fritter it away. There is no way to control that, so even if everyone has at least a basic level of income, it doesn't mean that people won't still be 'poor', because of the spending choices they make.
His having been a “registered Republican” has been debunked (as per that Frances Rice article, posted here more times than I can count, which was full of inaccuracies). The only definitive evidence was his FATHER having been one until early 1960. Jr. was VERY anti-Conservative Republican, calling Goldwater a tool of Southern racists.
Also, most Northern Blacks became Democrats by the mid ‘30s, Southern Blacks not until the early ‘60s, but the latter mostly couldn’t vote, and when they registered en masse by 1964, they voted over 90% Democrat.
I read Congressman Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. voted for Ike in ‘56, but that was often confused for MLK, Jr., for whom I still don’t know if he voted for Ike or Stevenson. A majority of Blacks (again, mostly Northern) who could vote in ‘56 went with Stevenson.
You must not get out much. It’s been sustained since at least the early ‘90s; click on the link to Bennett’s statement.
“King voted Republican in 1956, and his father had endorsed Nixon in 1960.” — Michael O’Brien, “John F. Kennedy: A Biography,” p. 485.
MLK Sr. endorsed JFK at the last minute, after Kennedy called Coretta Scott King.
Yes, that's what I said. But the claim of Jr. having been a Republican, registered or otherwise, is what is in dispute. Ostensibly Jr. would've been eligible to vote with the 1950 mid-term elections. But I have yet to unearth what his voting record was during that period, if he even did vote (given the obstacles most Southern Blacks had). Many of the more leftist Blacks in the South in the '50s that were activists were already aligned with the national Democrats.
But the basic point of this was would MLK, Jr. been a Republican or Conservative by today's standards, and the answer to that is a firm "no." He was a fairly committed Socialist and moving further leftward throughout the 1960s. I've puzzled over why this obsession with a man actively seeking martyrdom AFTER he had accomplished his goal with the CRAs, he inflicted more harm on his children than anything else, and they needed their father above all, not a symbol. Had he not been the victim of assassination, he'd have continued his pursuit of trendy, far-left causes well into the '70s and '80s and doubtless would've been about as well regarded as Je$$e Jack$on or Al Sharpton.
Bingo!!! You’re right as rain. MLK was a Socialist at least and maybe even a Communist. The Kennedy’s didn’t bug his rooms and phones just for the Hell of it.
The fact that MLK, Jr. has come to represent the ENTIRE face of the Civil Rights movement is a slap in the face to scores of people who accomplished much, those that were trying to do the right thing without necessarily seeking personal glory for themselves, let alone martyrdom to try to equal Christ, which is blasphemous on its face.
What of the heroic Republican federal officials from Reconstruction, for which almost nobody can name today ? Those men had NOBODY to pave the way for them. Even a Black Republican minister and Congressional candidate from Chicago, the Rev. Archibald Carey, Jr., who delivered the “Let Freedom Ring” speech before the 1952 Republican National Convention, has been forgotten (a speech largely plagarized by MLK, Jr). Nobody knows who Rev. Carey is today or what he spoke.
I find it exceedingly distasteful the canonization of someone who was a political opportunist, believer in massive government (which has caused far more grievous harm to the Black community than all the racists and single-digit IQ’d Klansmen could’ve dreamed of in their wildest fantasies), a serial adulterer, plagarist, Marxist sympathizer (sorry, guys, but he was on the side of the Viet Cong, and he didn’t want our people fighting on the side of the cause of pro-Democracy freedom), and an absentee father who sought personal glory at the cost of everything else as a model to emulate.
That may be a harsh statement, but for heaven’s sake, people need to take a step back and look at him from a critical perspective. What exactly DID he ultimately accomplish for the long term ? Can anyone answer me that ? The fact that the Black community has been reduced to a psychological basketcase always searching for the next Socialist Messiah to lead them to the promised land is sad, and continues to be their greatest impediment to success, the perpetual mental bondage. The failure to follow the self-help leaders like Booker T. Washington, who in my opinion may be one of the greatest men in American history of ANY race, who warned against race-hustler charlatans we’ve come to see in the past 50+ years leading the community astray, has been a terrible thing. We should be celebrating and studying THAT truly great man.
As for the rest, I noted in my article MLK was not a conservative. You may have noticed from the title.
Actually, I don't spend every waking hour on the subject, snarky. Or perhaps...never mind.
Neither do I, yet I heard about it. That’s my point.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.