MLK was slaughtered on this day 47 years ago

[Number23]

96. Again, I sincerely appreciate your civility.

I have grown immensely tired of seeing the "King wasn't JUST a civil rights hero" meme tossed around this board and among other havens of white thought, both liberal and conservative. That 'just' puts my teeth on edge, as if for this man to have been so revered around the world, for people in schools and communities around the world to have learned about him, he simply had to be about so much more than JUST black civil rights in America.

But at the heart of the matter, that is quite simply the single most important issue that he is known for. What he is revered for. And what he was killed for. There is no question that King was an adamant protestor of the Vietnam War, that he protested and was a stalwart proponent of worker's rights. But he was one of millions who were. The thing that made Martin Luther King Jr. MLK imo was his impassioned commitment to black rights and his religious beliefs that no man was greater or worse than any other before God. Period. The reason his positions on these other issues were even given the tiniest bit of weight was because of the political clout, accolades, death threats, imprisonments and worldwide acclaim that he got as a proponent of BLACK RIGHTS.

By all means, let's talk about all of the other things he fought for. But when you state, as you did, that he has been "sanitized" and that all of the focus is on his "marches" instead of the other, presumably equally as important work as his stance on worker's issues and the Vietnam War, that's when I stepped in. There's no question King has been sanitized, but not because of the focus on civil rights for black people. That WAS his work, and in my opinion, it's the desperate efforts to re-write the attention he gave to other issues as being every bit as important, if not more so, than his work on black rights that is the "sanitizing." NOTHING was more important to the man than for his children and his people to have the rights that many whites took for granted.

And I'd probably feel this way even without my personal history, though there is no question that my upbringing and what I have learned about the man growing up color these feelings.

I'd encourage you to read the article that sheshe2 linked to in her response to me upthread a bit. There is a reason that pictures of MLK lined every old black person's house I knew growing up, along with pictures of JFK and Jesus. And as important as protesting the Vietnam War was, you can bet every dollar to your name that was not the reason those pics lined those homes up and down the American South, nor is it the reason the whole world knows his name and cherishes his memory.