[gaijin]

He resistered as a Republican but privately always identified as a Marxist.

His father DID legally change his name to Martin Luther King Sr., merely asking his congregatio to refer to his son as Martin Luther King Jr., a request they honored.

His name, though, remained MIKE KING.

50% of his PhD thesis was plagiarized and he regularly cheated on his wife and used prostitutes, many of whom he beat up.

Was his cause just? Was he hugely charismatic..?

Yes.

[gaijin]

Stanley David Levison, rich salesman, political intellectual and uber southern commie.

THIS is the super lefty who first recognized MLK's other-wordly oratory powers, later writing many of his speeches. He hated Christianity but as a politically ruthless activist, saw that religion in the southern poor could be weaponized as a vehicle to transform America.

Levison sent King to a school house that was converted into a training academy for up and coming communists.

Originally Hoover was NOT interested in surveilling MLK, it was LEVISON whom he despised. MLK got swept up in the net originally cast for Levison.

At several junctures in private, Levison voiced contempt for his protege MLK.

[jeffersondem]

“Was his cause just?”

The only problem I have with Dr. King was his violence against women.

And that he was wrong to give his sympathies to the Viet Cong and side against U.S. troops.

And his Russian/communist sympathies during the cold war.

And his advocacy of a guaranteed annual income for everyone in the U.S.

And for his successful advocacy of giving the federal government more, and more, and more power for just about everything, including local schools.

And for his idea that deployment of federal bayonets would make people love each other.

I don't know that I agree with Jackie Kennedy's statement: "I just can’t see a picture of Martin Luther King without thinking, you know, that man’s terrible."

But then, I don't have the information to which she had access.

[Theodore R.]

In GA (and AL and TX), one does not register by party. He is a Democrat if he votes in a Democratic primary every two years. And vice versa

[nicollo]

50% of his PhD thesis was plagiarized and he regularly cheated on his wife and used prostitutes, many of whom he beat up.

I know a woman who was having an affair with one of MLK's buddies at the time. She was from Harlem, pretty, young, and smart, and helped re-write the "Dream" speech the night before. She says he was a "country bumpkin," as in dumb as a rock.

I never asked her about the prostitutes... lol