![]() ![]() That critique is important, but by focusing on those late-1960s positions, we fail to realize how King demonstrated radical behavior even earlier in his life. King’s opposition to the Vietnam War or to his late-in-life anti-poverty crusade as evidence of his radicalism. Historians, theorists and African American Studies scholars who remind us to be skeptical of the comfortable, sanitized versions of Martin Luther King Jr. But the King that we need to remember is the one who keenly understood what he was up against.Īndra Gillespie, author of Race and the Obama Administration: Substance, Symbols and Hope: It became hard to remember why, or even that, King was the most hated person in America during his lifetime. King became safe and ethereal, registering as a noble moralist. After he was gone the memory of King taking the struggle to Chicago, railing against the Vietnam War and economic injustice, emphasizing what was true in the Black Power movement, and organizing a Poor People’s Campaign faded into an unthreatening idealism. ![]()
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