Martin Luther King Jr. said more than 35 words
In February 2021, Popular Information revealed that OAN, a far-right network that relentlessly pushed Trump's lies about the 2020 election, relies heavily on the financial backing of AT&T. Through its DirectTV subsidiary, AT&T provided OAN with millions in revenue. AT&T provided Popular Information with the following statement:
A few months later, Reuters provided more details on OAN's contract with DirectTV and how essential it was to OAN's survival. On Friday, DirectTV announced that would stop carrying OAN when its contract expires in April. Accountability journalism is a powerful force for change. You can support this work with a paid subscription. To maintain total independence, Popular Information accepts no advertising. This newsletter only exists because of the support of readers like you. Martin Luther King Jr. wrote several books, delivered hundreds of speeches and sermons, and produced a massive quantity of documents and correspondence. The King Papers, a collection of King's writings and published by the Martin Luther King Jr. Research and Education Institute at Stanford University, spans 14 volumes, each about 750 pages. Yet, for many right-wing politicians, the entirety of King's advocacy is comprised of these 35 words from his "I Have A Dream" speech in Washington, DC:
This single 35-word sentence is then stripped from its context — and everything else King said over his lifetime — to argue that the way to honor King is to not talk or think about race, racism, or racial inequality. Former President Trump summarized this view during a speech on September 17, 2020:
Trump expanded on this thought at a campaign rally in Michigan on October 17, 2020, asserting that King believed that race was something "were not supposed to be thinking about."
This view is not unique to Trump. It is a characterization of King's legacy that is shared by other Republican leaders, including Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy and former Ohio State Treasurer — and current U.S. Senate candidate — Josh Mandel. It's echoed by right-wing organizations like Prager U and Campus Reform. You don't have to be a history scholar to realize that this is a gross mischaracterization of King's vision. King spoke frequently about racial inequality and the obligation to address racial injustice. King's "dream" of a society where people could be judged on the "content of their character" was conditioned on economic justice for Black Americans. King asserted that the country needed to make good on the "bad check" it had written to people of color — a portion of King's 1963 speech that is never quoted by Republicans:
Was the Civil Rights Act of 1964 the fulfillment of King's dream? We don't have to guess. King addressed the status of his dream in a Christmas Eve sermon at the Ebenezer Baptist Church in 1967, just three months before his assassination:
In addressing economic inequality, did King oppose race-conscious policies? King addressed this in a 1965 interview with writer Alex Haley. In the interview, Haley asked King whether he supported "a multibillion-dollar program of preferential treatment for the Negro." This was King's response:
Did King reject the concept of "systemic racism," as many modern conservatives claim? He addressed the topic in a sermon at Washington's National Cathedral on March 31, 1968, four days before his death:
Conservatives today are not required to agree with King and his ideals. But they should not falsify his legacy on the holiday that marks his birth or any other day. That, however, has always been the plan. How Reagan created the MLK holiday and coopted King's legacyPresident Reagan was not a fan of the civil rights movement. He opposed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, calling it a "bad piece of legislation" and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, describing it as "humiliating to the South." In 1966, running for governor of California, he defended racial housing discrimination. "If an individual wants to discriminate against Negroes or others in selling or renting his house," Reagan said, "it is his right to do so." When Reagan ran for president in 1980, King's widow, Coretta Scott King, said she was "scared that if Ronald Reagan gets into office, we are going to see more of the Ku Klux Klan." So it's not a surprise that Reagan had long opposed the creation of a holiday to honor King. During Reagan's first two years in office, he claimed it would cost too much money. But, with reelection approaching and facing increased pressure from the NAACP, Reagan abruptly reversed course and signed a bill creating the holiday into law in 1983. Just prior to signing the bill, however, Reagan wrote to New Hampshire Governor Meldrim Thomson Jr. (R). Thomson loathed King, calling him "a man of immoral character," and was urging Reagan to veto the holiday. Reagan assured Thomson that the holiday would celebrate the "image" of King and not the "reality."
In the years that followed, Reagan crafted a false image of King, claiming that King would have supported policies that he stridently opposed. In a 1986 radio address, Reagan invoked King to defend his attacks on affirmative action, anti-poverty programs, and civil rights enforcement:
Decades later, this cynical strategy is still being employed by right-wing politicians. Honoring King's legacy by banning second graders from reading about KingThe absurdity of the right-wing manipulation of King's legacy is on full display in Tennessee. Last month, Popular Information reported on Moms for Liberty, a right-wing dark money group that purports to oppose Critical Race Theory (CRT). A Williamson County, Tennessee chapter of Moms For Liberty filed a complaint arguing that the state's new anti-CRT law prohibits Tennessee second graders from reading several books, including "Martin Luther King, Jr. and the March on Washington." Moms for Liberty also objected to the teacher's manual accompanying the King book because it had a negative depiction of Bull Connor, the notorious racist who used hoses and attack dogs to enforce segregation. Over the weekend, Moms for Liberty hosted the "American Dream Conference." The purpose of the event, which uses King's image, is to discuss "how to put the American Dream back into our education system." At the conference, Ben Carson, the former Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, told the audience to judge people "by the content of their character and not the color of their skin." Another speaker, Vanderbilt professor Carol Swain claimed that the country has "totally begun to destroy [King's] vision of a colorblind society." If you value this work, please consider supporting it with a paid subscription. Popular Information is 100% reader-supported. |
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