Would today's coverage tarnish Martin Luther King?

[babylonsister]

http://www.miamiherald.com/509/story/482312.html

Would today's coverage tarnish Martin Luther King?
Like the Rev. Jeremiah Wright years later, Martin Luther King Jr. was ostracized for his sermons.

Posted on Thu, Apr. 03, 2008
By ANDREA ROBINSON


The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. is more popular now than he was in 1968, when his voice was silenced by an assassin's bullet. Snippets of his masterful oratory, especially his ''I Have a Dream'' speech, are hailed as the model for bridging racial and religious differences.

But what if there had been 24-hour news channels with liberals and conservatives talking over one another, or YouTube and video cellphones to capture more of the civil-rights leader's ever-escalating public challenges to -- and exasperated criticisms of -- 1960s America?

Would King be in the political crosshairs of public debate as another minister, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, is today? Would he be viewed as anti-American as critics have labeled Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama's minister, Wright, who proclaimed ''God damn America'' in a 2003 sermon -- a snippet that thousands have since viewed on YouTube?

Few people may remember that King was disinvited from the White House and the college-lecture circuit after giving an anti-Vietnam War sermon in which he excoriated the United States as ``the greatest purveyor of violence in the world.''

snip//

University of Miami history professor Donald Spivey, a Chicago native who often saw King speak, said Wright and King have slightly different preaching styles -- King's oratory was more elegant. But if the civil-rights leader were alive today, Spivey said, King would agree with ``everything Wright said.''

Walters, the political scientist, noted that at the beginning of King's career, whites and some blacks thought he was too militant. King was at one point kicked out of the National Baptist Convention.

''He was a rabble rouser,'' Walters said. ``We love him now, but a whole lot of people didn't want to see him coming back then.''

[marmar]

1. He would be smeared nightly as someone who hates America.....

..... Faux would smear Gandhi as a Hindofascist.

[babylonsister]

2. Yes and yes. Sad, isn't it. nt

[laststeamtrain]

8. "Hindofascist"--that's funny.

:rofl:

[TTUBatfan2008]

3. MLK was silenced...

because he dared to speak out about bigger issues than basic human rights. He dared to speak out about the Vietnam War. He dared to speak out against class warfare in the economy. It's precisely why it makes sense that the government was responsible for his death. It wasn't just a nutjob racist. He would have been killed long before then if it was just about racial issues. It's such a shame that some of our greatest leaders were chopped down for doing the right thing.

[Solly Mack]

4. King is easier for many to (claim to) love because he is dead

It's safer.....more than anything. King is safer to speak well of (for some)....because he is dead.

Safer as in you won't take any grief for your support since he's dead and he can't stand up and rebuke you for your hypocrisy.

I've talked about this before on DU.

King was a rabble rouser. King was controversial. King did rub a lot of people the wrong way. To align yourself with King was to anger those who opposed King.

I've said before that, dead, King could be safely taken off the shelf of history, dusted off, and paraded about without any real commitment to what King stood for...it's far easier to join hands and sing "We Shall Overcome" in "honor" of a dead civil rights champion than it was to join feet and march with a living civil rights champion.

Easier to honor a dead rabble rouser than to march side by side with the living rabble rouser and take an actual stand.

I was going to ignore the King "honors" today...simply because too many in the public (and not so public) eye, who will "honor" the dead King for whatever points it gains them, seldom (if ever) take a stand today for what King stood for....and probably wouldn't have risked standing with the living King.

but this thread speaks to just that, so...

[tavalon]

11. Spot on!

And, unfortunately, it's human nature to want to have the story to tell rather than live in the ongoing grittiness of it.

[madrchsod]

5. nothing has changed in america since his death

we have seen that reflected here at democratic underground.

[babylonsister]

6. I don't agree. People from many different walks of life are

embracing Obama; I consider that progress.

[KharmaTrain]

7. King Was Smeared And Ingnored While He Was Alive

The only time Dr. King made headlines is when he forced the issue. Just like our corporate media tries to hide this regime's corruption about Iraq, they dared not to touch the third rail of race relations in the 50's and 60's. King was a pain in the ass...a boat rocker...an uppity "negro". The status quo was Jim Crow...and the media was as much a participant as anyone else. There were few black journalists and none on the television screens. King would be villianized in many parts of the country...as the local and regional press still held a lot of sway then.

King knew well the two-part world he was cast into...and tailored his messages to those "two Americas". Compared to a Malcolm X or Eldridge Cleaver, King appeared not just moderate but reasonable to white audiences...but still at a distance. He communicated differently to the black community...to show that he shared in their pain and outrage and his passion flowed when he was at the pulpit. He was not just offering a rallying cry, but a message of hope. It just had to be transmitted different ways to different people.

I'm certain that if Dr. King were alive, he'd be very supportive of a lot of what Dr. Wright has said. A true patriot can stand up and condemn his own country when he sees injustice. Dr. King saw it and said it his way, Dr. Wright in his. The message still resonates...and unfortunate, it's picked up by the racists in this country as a message of evil, not hope.

[Hissyspit]

9. k&r

[noel711]

10. "Love Dr. KIng? Meet REv. Wright...

Oh, wait a minute...

WE can't have that bigotry from the pulpit.
Never mind."