[risk]

He was a great American with some flaws that were more than outweighed by his gifts. He also tried to steer his colleagues away from communism, according to an FBI recording cited in that link I gave you. He was not a communist, although he did work with people who had been. In any case, his efforts regarding civil rights should be taken by themselves, separately from his socialist ideas. They stand -- tower in fact -- on their own. He had a simple argument: America should be the land of the free, both in declaration and in fact.

[panaxanax]

If your definition of a "great American" is someone who incited riots every time he led a "peace march", was a whoremonger, drug user and surrounded himself with communists and socialists........then so be it.