Long live the king

Martin Luther King was a ferocious opponent of US war-mongering and imperialism, a fact conveniently overlooked by those who pose today as his spiritual heirs..

Eamonn McCann, 14 Sep 2011

Plans to erect a statue of Martin Luther King at the National Mall in Washington were blown away by Hurricane Irene a couple of weeks back. Hauling the 28-foot figure upright in 100mph winds was thought too hazardous an enterprise.

When he is finally in place, MLK will stand between Lincoln and Jefferson, ten feet higher than either. Which suggests he’s regarded as above all others in US history – or, alternatively, his legacy still spooks the political elite. I’m going with option two.

What still alarms the elite about King today isn’t his role as a civil rights leader but his record as an anti-war agitator. This aspect of his life is routinely ignored when paeans of praise are heaped upon his memory. Most accounts move directly from his “I have a dream” speech in Washington in August 1963 to his assassination in Memphis in April 1968. It was during this period, as he devoted himself to campaigning against war and poverty, that FBI boss J. Edgar Hoover labelled him “the most dangerous Negro in America.”

No-one except crazies from the badlands beyond the Tea Party now argues against the achievements of King’s crusade for equality for African-Americans. Nobody runs for office demanding that the Civil Rights Acts of 1964 and 1968 or the Voting Rights Act of 1965 be scrubbed from the statute book. But King’s opposition to the Vietnam War still excites consternation – not least in the White House of the first African-American to rise to the pinnacle of politics.

Obama’s awareness - and wariness - of King’s anti-war stance came through in his speech on acceptance of the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize. “I make this statement mindful of what Martin Luther King said in this same ceremony years ago: ‘Violence never brings permanent peace.’ But as a head of state sworn to protect and defend my nation, I cannot be guided by [King’s and Gandhi’s] examples alone. I face the world as it is and cannot stand idle in the face of threats to the American people...”

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