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I agree with much of what Bates says. In truth, King is largely an unknown quantity. As Bates points out, what people believe is so larded with symbols and personal perceptions, the actual man is lost.

Personally, I regard King as another activist cleric that lives in denial of his 'faith' while using the collar as a cover for explicit political ends. I also regard his communist associations and infidelity as indicators of his real character - color notwithstanding. It will be recalled that none other than Ronald Reagan was excoriated by the Left and the press for voicing his wonder at just what the good Reverend was up to over in the Soviet Union. Of course, he recanted and gave us all (at least those who work for the government) a tax payer funded day off.

In the final analysis, though, it is up to the machinery of the culture to decide what he was and what he accomplished. So far, the Left has been in firm control of that legacy and they have sainted him with honors far, far beyond his ken. In any event, he was the lightning rod for social change and a good deal of that was good and necessary. A good deal of it, however, was just plain bad and we still suffer the ill effects of the 'moral' crusade of those times.

In the future, the debate may be rejoined and the restraint of political correctness gone. Then the true measure of the man will be taken - when all those that would bludgeon legitimate questions are finally seen as the bigots of the present age.

MLK was a man of enormous charisma and courage and certainly a pivotal figure in the civil rights movement. There is much about him that I admire. An assesment of his life could creditably yield the adjective of great. Despite that, he does not deserve to be the ONLY American with his own holiday named after him. That honor should be reserved for only one person in American history, the greatest of all Americans, George Washington. More so than any other SINGLE figure of the revolution, he was the "indispensable man." Without his courage and integrity, the US would simply not exist, and if it did, it would have been as a monarchy or emporership.

MLK's birthday was a sop to PC and a reflection of the DemocRAT Congress that voted it. The depth of MLK's association with the most anti-freedom ideaology of our time will prove to very embarrassing when it is fully revealed. Additionally, MLK's legacy to the modern day civil rights movement is a socialist bequeathment, that of looking to big government solutions for many of the behavioral problems in today's black community.

For the record, I am a black man who is sick of all the homage to the PC kultursmog that is rampant in this country today.