Friendly reminder that MLK was a democratic socialist.

[H2O Man]

50. It's worth noting

that MLK continued to evolve in his philosophy after 1958. For but one example, like his father and much of the Civil Rights leadership, he was a registered republican in the 1950s. That changed, of course, when presidential candidate John F. Kennedy called Coretta Scott King Martin was in a jail where his life was at risk. As a result of that episode, black voters came out for the Democratic tickets in numbers larger than JFK's margin of victory.

President Kennedy and, even more so, his brother Robert, were commonly accused by republicans of being "socialists" and "communists." In the late 1950s though his death, Dr. King was constantly accused of being "socialist" or "communist" as well. This included by members of the intelligence community, and not limited to the FBI. I know this for a fact, in part from listening to relatives talking at various family reunions. They believed that about JFK, RFK, and MLK.

By 1967, King was beginning to openly change his focus from "civil rights" to "human rights." In his greatest speech, on April 4, 1967, at the Riverside Church in NYC, King called for a "radical revolution of values." He then addressed the economic policies that were preventing the country from obtaining social justice.

It is true that King did not use the word "socialism." Perhaps he had taken note of what Malcolm X had said a few years before, when asked about his breaking bread with identified socialists. Malcolm said it would not be wise to put a skull & crossbones on a bottle of medicine that you recognize people need.