my good friend's dad was his lawyer. I've heard a lot of cool first hand stories about the black intellectual movement of the 60's and 70's. Fascinating stuff.


Not Crap, of course.

Obviously not crap according to any decent thinking person, but a couple legitimate waffles regarding the man instead of childish fawning praise.

One, the popular historical narrative seems to have elevated MLK to the being responsible for the entire 60’s civil rights movement to the diminishment of other importance civil rights leaders and lesser movement participants. Not that any of that is his fault or even that he would agree with that viewpoint if he was still here today. But such is the tendency with popular history to make it all into sexy, character-driven narratives focused on several strong personalities instead of the complexity of real human societies.

Second his lack of honesty or discipline with his sexuality on two different dimensions. First on the personal level how disrespectful it is to your wife and children to put what your cock wants above what is decent and right, particularly when you place yourself on the moral pedestal of being a man of the cloth. Second, how his selfish actions of getting some on the side, endangered his own lofty goals and the entire civil rights movement. We all knew the blackmail J. Edgar Hoover was capable and I am guessing MLK did at the time which points to some poor decision making on his part when pussy was in play.

Third, that U2 song.

I do really wonder what how history could be different if he was not killed in ’68. Particularly his linking of racism, militarism and poverty. He could be a majorly unifying leader for the entire left beyond simply civil rights had he not been assassinated. Overall a great man who made the world a better place, but flawed like the rest of us.

NC. Not too hard a decision, really. Warts and all, as has been said. The speech during the March on Washington rally (the "I have a dream" speech) still gives me chills every time I hear the recording.

Oddly enough, I have run across a guy who would have voted crap. When I was a student at IIT we were required to take swimming. Why? For engineering students? Never understood that. Anyway, the swim instructor regularly referred to Dr. King as "that trouble maker from Alabama". This was in the mid-'80's. Some forms of hatred die hard...

charliedon'tsurf wrote:I do really wonder what how history could be different if he was not killed in ’68. Particularly his linking of racism, militarism and poverty. He could be a majorly unifying leader for the entire left beyond simply civil rights had he not been assassinated. Overall a great man who made the world a better place, but flawed like the rest of us.

Tough call. I think there were two likely possibilities. Since he'd started to move into class politics and embrace the antiwar movement, he definitely seemed to be getting more radical as the years went on. The pessimist in me thinks he might've been marginalized as a "crackpot" by the end of the 70's by mainstream society, but considering his cred and how all the issues he was starting to embrace were all coming to a head at the same time, the optimist in me thinks he would've been able to weather opposition for a little bit longer and done a lot of good. Sadly, we'll never know. So depressing.

Hey Crap Voters, let us hear it!

Please explain yourselves,
unless you were just being tasteless goofs.

Obviously not crap.

Despite his Santaclausification, MLK was a dangerous man that challenged the status quo in a way that could have left much deeper currents of, and for, social change prior to his assassination.

charliedon'tsurf wrote:I do really wonder what how history could be different if he was not killed in ’68. Particularly his linking of racism, militarism and poverty. He could be a majorly unifying leader for the entire left beyond simply civil rights had he not been assassinated. Overall a great man who made the world a better place, but flawed like the rest of us.

Not Crap. Shit's pretty obvious.




New posters trying to be funny voting Crap for MLK. Shit's not that funny.

not crap.

I know it sounds cheesey but I am grateful to the people who worked so hard during the latter half of the last century to make life easier for my generation. So much that we take for granted was made possible by people who weren't afraid to face police dogs and fire hoses

Christopher J. McGarvey wrote:

charliedon'tsurf wrote:I do really wonder what how history could be different if he was not killed in ’68. Particularly his linking of racism, militarism and poverty. He could be a majorly unifying leader for the entire left beyond simply civil rights had he not been assassinated. Overall a great man who made the world a better place, but flawed like the rest of us.

that was a great episode...