Do you think MLK would have been killed if he had stuck to racial issues

[prolesunited]

and not started fighting against the Vietnam War and rallying people for economic justice?

Sometimes I think the establishment tries to marginalize MLK by acting as if his legacy was solely about civil rights, but we seldom hear the eloquent words he spoke about peace or the strides he had made in uniting people under the banner of the labor movement.

I have long thought that the powers-that-be realized they could not stop the jauggernaut the civil rights movement had become. However, when they saw that he would be turning his attention — and the national spotlight he commanded — to speaking out against the war machine and fighting for economic justice for ALL of the nation's downtrodden, he truly became a threat and had to be taken out.

Anybody have any opinions on this topic that they care to share?

[RandomKoolzip]

1. He was okay for the powers-that-be until he started talking

wealth redistribution. A black man speaking about institutionalized racism and invoking the name of God they can tolerate grudgingly, but once you use your fame to start hitting them where it hurts (the wallet), it's time to find a "lone nut assassin" and get the problem taken care of.

[BigDaddyLove]

15. Absolutely correct............

So many people are completely unaware that toward the very end of his life he began to speak out against economic injustice in America and was extremely outspoken with regard to the Vietnam war and American foreign policy in general.

There was a lot more to Dr. King than the "I have a Dream" speech, which is all you ever seem to hear about in relation to his life and work.

Interesting reading here:

http://www.fair.org/media-beat/950104.html

[CityZen-X]

23. Zip Iz Xactly Korrect!

Every time there has been any individual that can move the people to a higher ground on this planet, they are eradicated stage left, permanently! Ghandi, Lennon, Kennedy's. etc.

[mitchum]

24. Yep!

[Minstrel Boy]

2. Tackling economic injustice and the military-industrial complex

certainly hastened his death. Though who can say how much longer he would have survived if his message had remained solely civil rights? The FBI had wanted him dead for sometime.

Here's King, from 1967. Change one word, and it still applies.

"Now, it should be incandescently clear that no one who has any concern for the integrity and life of America today can ignore the present war. If America's soul becomes totally poisoned, part of the autopsy must read Vietnam. It can never be saved so long as it destroys the deepest hopes of men the world over. So it is that those of us who are yet determined that America will be are led down the path of protest and dissent, working for the health of our land."
http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/45a/058.html

I wonder how many Americans know that, in 1999, the US government was found liable in a US civil court for the wrongful death of Martin Luther King?

It should have been the trial of the century. Who knows about it? Where was the press?

The King family asked for $100 in damages. It wasn't about money. It was about establishing the truth in a court of law. And a jury found that the government conspired in his death. And yet who knows it?

From the court transcripts of the MLK wrongful death civil trial, December 8, 1999. The verdict:

THE COURT: All right, ladies and gentlemen. I understand you reached a verdict. Is that correct?

THE JURY: Yes (In unison).

THE COURT: May I have that verdict.

(Verdict form passed to the Court.)

THE COURT: I have authorized this gentleman here to take one picture of you which I'm going to have developed and make copies and send to you as I promised. Okay. All right, ladies and gentlemen. Let me ask you, do all of you
agree with this verdict?

THE JURY: Yes (In unison).

THE COURT: In answer to the question did Loyd Jowers participate in a conspiracy to do harm to Dr. Martin Luther King, your answer is yes. Do you also find that others, including governmental agencies, were parties to this conspiracy as alleged by the defendant? Your answer to that one is also yes. And the total amount of damages you find for the plaintiffs entitled to is one hundred dollars. Is that your verdict?

THE JURY: Yes (In unison).

http://thekingcenter.com/news/trial/Volume14.html

[Frances]

3. I think the idea of racial justice

was enough to set off a large number of my fellow white Southerners.

Everyone knew that racial justice would lead to a change in politics and a better chance of economic justice.

[lcordero]

4. cynical as I am

I believe that the Vietnam War was a ploy to distract away from domestic concerns and prevent minorities from getting anything that even resembles equality.

[deminflorida]

5. Ironic as it may seem...

A Gay Director of the F.B.I. (Hoover) probably orchestrated MLK and RFK's death.

Hypocrisy, is the greatest threat to America. It was then, it is now.

[Clark4VotingRights]

7. Correct. And the two were related. Hoover was furious when RFK

forced him to *recall/retract* his attack document on MLK.
He retracted it, but he didn't forget.

[Deja Q]

19. How exactly is cross dressing homosexuality?!!!!

Show me the links.

We all know he loved wearing womens' clothes. But unlike what Jerry Springer will tell you, it's not just a gay thing!

[mitchum]

26. Actually the allegations of transvestism are the spurious ones

Hoover's homosexuality was well known. Even by those who never saw the photograph of Tolson's member in Hoover's mouth. God, that must have looked like a bulldog with a rawhide chew toy!

[mitchum]

25. Even more ironic was Hoover's own mixed race ancestry...

Gore Vidal said that the knowledge of this was rivaled only by Edgar and Clyde's relationship as the biggest open secret in Washington society. Hoover was just textbook.

[Clark4VotingRights]

6. Onmygod. Once Hoover realized they couldn't assinate his character,

and couldn't blackmail him into shutting up, and couldn't
destroy his following, and couldn't successfully paint him
as a "communist," would win the Nobel Peace Prize,
and couldn't get him to commit suicide,
he was determined to kill him.
It was just a matter of finding a fall guy.
They found one.

I can't believe the crap they put that man through.
The hours of illegal tapes, the threats, and ultimately...

The only way for MLK to avoid Hoover's hit would have been
to sell out his cause.

[not systems]

8. They were clearing the way for...

drugs and crime to dismantle and side track civil rights
and social justice for decades.

They killed all the leaders who brought up these issues
and could lead with moral authority.

[Clark4VotingRights]

9. I think you're right. Easy access to guns was/is a big part of that.

eom

[prolesunited]

11. I'm confused about your point

How did killing King provide easier access to guns? Or, am I just not following your train of thought?

[WhoCountsTheVotes]

10. when he started talking about corporations and economic justice

he sealed his fate. Look what happens when you protest the WTO.

[prolesunited]

12. READ this article!!!

I just found it and it's simply incredible! It makes my point but MUCH more effectively.

Martin Luther King: Terrorist On the stunning disparity between a nation that glorifies war and one that honors Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. with a holiday

Let’s not mince words. Were Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. alive today, he would be at risk for being imprisoned indefinitely, without charges or access to legal counsel, as an “enemy combatant.” He would be decried, by powerful figures inside and outside government, as at worst a domestic terrorist, at best a publicity-seeking menace whose criticisms of America gave comfort to our unseen enemies.
<snip>

The literal whitewashing of King also serves another purpose: to locate American racism as safely in the South and in our historical past. The changes of the past half century are, indeed, remarkable; Jim Crow seems today as unthinkable as slavery itself. But struggles against racial equality happened in every state -- not just Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia. As for our progress since then, consider: the persistently huge economic gaps between whites and non-whites; the horrific public health indices in some non-white areas, including the re-emergence of TB and widespread, endemic hunger among often non-white children; the shameful failure of public education in many predominantly non-white school districts; the War on Drugs and its imprisonment of a generation of non-white youth; the race-coded political attacks on welfare and workfare programs; the near-complete dismantling of affirmative action; and the still-striking disparity between how America looks and how its leaders look. We still have a long, long way to go.
<snip>

Dr. King, nonviolent martyr to reconciliation and justice, has become a Hallmark Card, a warm, fuzzy, feel-good invocation of neighborliness, a file photo for sneakers or soda commercials, a reprieve for post-holiday shoppers, an excuse for a three-day weekend, a cardboard cutout used for photo ops by the same political leaders that wage wars and let black children starve.

He deserves better. We all do.
http://www.workingforchange.com/article.cfm?ItemID=16294

[Lone_Wolf]

13. Food for thought...

Have you ever noticed whenever you see video of Dr. King on television, these clips are ALWAYS pre-1965. This was the period of his life when he was involved in Civil Rights. However, he was killed in 1968 which leaves 3 years of film footage of him missing.

In other words, even though Dr. King's and his movement had GROWN in popularity, you NEVER seen video footage of his final 3 years. The 3 years where he was a vocal critic of the Vietnamn War and class inequality.

I believe he would still be alive if only talked about Civil Rights.

[prolesunited]

14. Here's another article

That corroborates your point.

The Martin Luther King You Don't See On TV

It's become a TV ritual: Every year in mid-January, around the time of Martin Luther King's birthday, we get perfunctory network news reports about "the slain civil rights leader." The remarkable thing about this annual review of King's life is that several years -- his last years -- are totally missing, as if flushed down a memory hole.
<snip>

Noting that a majority of Americans below the poverty line were white, King developed a class perspective. He decried the huge income gaps between rich and poor, and called for "radical changes in the structure of our society" to redistribute wealth and power.
<snip>

By 1967, King had also become the country's most prominent opponent of the Vietnam War, and a staunch critic of overall U.S. foreign policy, which he deemed militaristic. In his "Beyond Vietnam" speech delivered at New York's Riverside Church on April 4, 1967 -- a year to the day before he was murdered -- King called the United States "the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today."

http://www.fair.org/media-beat/950104.html

[shanti]

22. thanks for posting this link!

i've learned so much from the conscious du'ers here.

[prolesunited]

27. You're welcome

I've learned so much since I came here as well. I have some really good quotes I'll add to this thread later when I get home.

[Jose Diablo]

29. The movie "8 Mile"

was striking to me, because it showed a white in the same situation as blacks. The lack of opportunity, the feeling of hopelessness was hard to take in the movie. It made me think about others far less fortunate than me, by birth. In the end, the hero won by pointing out that he was trailer trash and his opponent was a tom from 810 (a northern burg of Detroit). Eminen was had indeed more in common with his audience than his opponent. Indeed, we are all just people and this division of white/black is a form designed to divide us.

I have noticed the deep seated racism within America tries to pit the poor white against the black. If you think about it, poor whites have more in common with poor blacks than rich or even middle class whites. You would think they would get together to say enough is enough, we demand more opportunities. Yet they do not do this. They cling to some illusion about how much better and more privilege they are than the blacks. How someday their ship will come in, they will win the bingo game.

Yet the poor whites are held down as rigorously as the poor blacks. Held down by disparate education, higher taxes as a measured against disposable income, lack of training for employment, lower or non existent medical care. I could go on, but you get my point.

Maybe this is what 'institutionalized racism' is really all about, an attempt to keep poor whites and poor blacks from uniting to gain a better position in life. It is about keeping all the poor down.

This is the only reason I can think of as why the last 3 years of film documentation on Dr. Kings life would be suppressed. The message being suppressed is all in America are being ripped-off. It is not just the blacks, although they bear the most harsh treatment, but all are being mistreated.

This message would be very dangerous to the status quo. It could cause the small boat to be rocked. This message would fire up the federals because remember, their primary reason to exist to maintain the status quo.

[Nikia]

30. That's what I am talking about

That is a very good illustration.

[prolesunited]

31. That certainly was his message

in his later years. I agree that race is used as a wedge issue to keep us from engaging in a class struggle. United — and energized — we certainly would be a force to contend with. It's a shame people can't see that more clearly.

[Nikia]

16. Yes

His civil rights rhetoric was about uniting people and how being a minority wouldn't be a handicap in the future. This was scary enough for the government.
Don't you think that the powerful have used race to divide us and continue to count on using race to divide us? Don't you think that they would be upset that someone was trying to take that away from them and might have been successful?

[prolesunited]

20. I truly believe

that we would be living in a different world if King, Malcolm X, JFK and RFK had lived, but then again, that's probably why many wanted them dead.

I seem to recall ties to Poppy Bush with some of this. Anyone know more or have any links?

[blindpig]

17. I agree with you 100%

MLK's assasination was the 1st move in the counteroffensive against the progressive drift/new deal. The end game is now in play.

[blondeatlast]

18. Yes, I'm afraid so.

[DrWeird]

21. Vietnam was a racial issue.

Paraphrasing from one of King's speeches...

he would tell the angry young black men that they couldn't solve their problems by picking up a gun. That the only way to bring about change was through non violent civil disobedience.

Then the young men would ask him what about Vietnam? The US is attempting to solve their problems through all out war.

And this hit home for King.

The US was, and is, the greatest promoter of violence and murder in the world. He couldn't call for peaceful demonstrations while not protesting the war in Vietnam. Which in his opinion was a war against the poor.

[Toots]

28. Not sure what you mean by "Racial issues"

He was for "Human Rights" and wanted them to be equal. It didn't matter in what arena he still promoted "Human Rights and I know of no where in any speach or action he made where he was racially motivated in any way.

[Terwilliger]

32. another interesting article noting MLK's more radical nature

http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=17573

[prolesunited]

33. Thanks!

Interesting article. These two paragraphs summarize his shift in focus well. It likely was the Poor People's Campaign sealed his fate.

By 1967, King made the critical decision to shift his moral focus. He confronted head-on the capitalist economic structure and the military complex of the United States, and he articulated the links between the two. He witnessed a tragedy that has reappeared in recent years with frightening parallels: a "war on poverty" that mutated into "not even a good skirmish" as funds were diverted to an unjust, immoral war in Vietnam.

Dr. King was murdered just weeks before his Poor People's Campaign, a multiracial mobilization of poor African Americans, whites, Latinos, and Asian and Native Americans, descended upon Washington. The plan was to create such a crisis of nonviolent direct action and civil disobedience in the nation's capital that Congress and the Executive would be forced to deal with the crime of widespread poverty.

[Jose Diablo]

34. Civil Disobedience

Would refusing to stay in a free speech zone be civil disobedience?

[prolesunited]

35. Yes, I certainly think

that would qualify.

King on six principles of nonviolence
• Nonviolence is not passive, but requires courage;
• Nonviolence seeks reconciliation, not defeat of an adversary;
• Nonviolent action is directed at eliminating evil, not destroying an evil-doer;
• A willingness to accept suffering for the cause, if necessary, but never to inflict it;
• A rejection of hatred, animosity or violence of the spirit, as well as refusal to commit physical violence; and
• Faith that justice will prevail.
http://habitat.igc.org/gksnv/king.htm

Both Gandhi and Thoreau played instrumental roles in shaping King's views on civil disobedience and the tenets of nonviolence.

"I became convinced that noncooperation with evil is as much a moral obligation as is cooperation with good. No other person has been more eloquent and passionate in getting this idea across than Henry David Thoreau. As a result of his writings and personal witness, we are the heirs of a legacy of creative protest." - Martin Luther King, Jr, from his Autobiography, Chapter 2
http://eserver.org/thoreau/civil.html

You can read Thoreau's landmark essay in its entirety here:
http://eserver.org/thoreau/civil1.html