Posted on 01/18/2010 12:51:42 AM PST by Nextrush
Dr. Martin Luther King "...did not want to be a saint or viewed as a saint. He was just a human being, capable of becoming and producing and leading his people out of the wilderness of segregation into the promised land..." (CSPAN Booknotes-Reverend Ralph David Abernathy 10/29/89)
When his longtime friend and closest associate, Reverend Ralph Abernathy, wrote about the "human side" of King in his 1989 autobiography ("And The Walls Came Tumbling Down") a firestorm was set off.
The King family and allies blasted Abernathy for several days in the mainstream media.
There was no internet or talk radio to consider the controversy or its origins.
Rev. Abernathy wrote of Martin Luther King as being human because he knew that King was in his description a "womanizer" in his private moments away from the pulpit and cameras.
These private moments had nothing to do with "racism", "justice", "hatred" or "equality." They weren't about "Civil Rights" either.
But they had everything to do with sex and lust.
One author, Charles Kaiser, offered this observation in his book "1968 In America." (page 135)
".....But the knowledge that almost nothing he did was truly private gnawed away at King. Like John Kennedy, he had a sexual appetite that could not be satisfied within the confines of his marriage, and like the late president, the risk of disclosure never led him to adjust his conduct."
That "risk of disclosure" began when the Kennedy Administration authorized the FBI to wiretap Dr. King's lawyer and eventually King himself in 1963.
Author Taylor Branch (a biographer of Bill Clinton's presidency ironically) wrote a few pages about Martin Luther King's sexual activities as gleaned from King's conversations with lawyer Clarence Jones in August 1963.
".....King had lowered his personal barriers to Jones, offering him the essential secrets of his private life. Unerringing, he chose to reveal himself to men and women who could absorb the news without developing blisters of unesasiness between them and him...They saw sexual adventure as a natural condition of manhood, or of great preachers obsessed by love, or of success, or of Negroes otherwise constrained by the white world, and they objected to King's mistresses no more than to the scores of concubines who had soothed King David during the composition of his Psalms....." (page 860, "Parting The Waters: America In the King Years 1954-1963)
In 1964, the FBI sent an audio tape of a Martin Luther King sexual encounter to his wife. Coretta Scott King's exact reaction really isn't known but she apparently felt that the cause was more important and the FBI was out to get her husband. Hints of Hillary Clinton's mindset here.
Author David J. Garrow wrote a book in 1981 titled "The FBI and Martin Luther King Jr., From "Solo" to Memphis."
Garrow, who is author of a number of books on King, used the description "compulsive sexual athleticism" to describe his personal life. King has numerous affairs including one with a woman he saw almost daily. Garrow said "that relationship, rather than his marriage, increasingly became the emotional centerpiece of King's life, but it did not eliminate the incidental couplings that were a commonplace of King's travels."
Garrow also noted that King's sex life caused him to have a "painful and overwhelming guilt."
Taylor Branch wrote of Dr. King's confidants reaction to his guilt.
".....Some of them grew tired of King's insistence that it was a sin, and his endless cycles from hedonism to self-recrimination and back." (page 860)
In 1977, a federal judge locked up the FBI files on their surveillance of Dr. King until 2027. No doubt, there are further revelations in those files.
For now, though, we know enough to draw the conclusion that Martin Luther King Jr. was in a league of sexual addiction that included two other 1960's historical figures who would meet a fate similar to his, John F. Kennedy and Robert F. Kennedy.
All three men would come to be revered with almost godlike status as martyrs for their era in history.
I have great sorrow when I consider the secret story of Martin Luther King's life.
Sexual addiction is a good description of it and I think this kind of "sickness" is something we don't want to face or talk about.
Tiger Woods appears to be facing his addiction right now and I wish him well.
As for Dr. King, his problem seems to be buried in a sea of idolization and denial.
There are too many cheerleaders (including conservatives) who want to join the praise and accolades.
As for me, I have to stand back and ask questions.
The questions go beyond this to the social and political aspects of MLK's life, but for this moment I choose to take note of the lust-sex addiction of Dr. King and ask how it can be reconciled to a national holiday and greatness.
When Dr. Martin Luther King and King Solomon met in glory, it surely was with a nod and a wink....
As to the question of "how", one way is by making the same asservations of George Washington, for one. The evidence for this is oblique, but it is enough to get one's attention. What is the true story there? I myself wonder.
I’m not sure about that, but Taylor Branch uses that “wink and nod” concept to describe how Ralph Abernathy, Andrew Young and other associates of Dr. King reacted to his sex habit.
There is a person’s work, and then there is the person. I think God has a lot of fun having obviously imperfect people to great works - it serves as an extremely efficient smack-down to moralists who would presume to judge the value of someone’s soul. In my experience, humility is taught in two methods - as a warning, and then if not heeded, as a demonstration. I believe Jesus, amongst many others throughout history, beseeched people to heed the first method, and thereby avoid the second. I believe lack of compassion is a sure sign the second method is eventually going to be required.
OK, a bad joke. Both would be cleansed saints at that point and no nodding or winking would actually happen. But King and Solomon could well say to each other “I know, that’s what happened when we thought with the wrong head.”
You might remember all the hullabaloo over Thomas Jefferson’s liasion with a slave and how it was made into a TV movie.
Is there any chance that this aspect of Martin Luther King’s life will ever be memorialized by the entertainment industry?
It would be a cold day in you know where for George Clooney and such to get behind such a project.
Beyond what you have said already, I have always made the following statements to myself and asked the following question of myself:
01. ) Every man and woman who has ever served in the U.S. military, both dead and survivors of wars, get one day per year, including all of the Medal of Honor winners.
02. ) All presidents, ( supposedly combined Washington’s and Lincoln’s birthday ) get one holiday.
Why does a black who was a hardcore conscientious objector, reference 01. ) above, and who never held any elective office, reference 02. ) above, get his own day?
Very tacky. This is about on par with saying Grant’s Tomb and the portrait on the Fifty Dollar Bill are to celebrate an alcoholic guy with bad cigar breath.
Wow, this is the first time I heard of this. What a pity! There are numerous other names which could be added to the list such as Michael Jackson, and Elvis Presley. The only one who ever lived a sinless life - Jesus Christ - is ridiculed.
Such a topsy, turvy world we live in where good is called evil, and evil - good.
I see a new federal holiday on the horizon - - December 30th.
Tiger Woods day!
Because King memorialized something that was worth memorializing in his (plagiarized but none the less true) “I Have A Dream” speech. If black communities would listen more to that and less to sex-and-violence rap today, they would go much further. For that reason I, a honky, say that it’s better that King have a day than not to have one.
We still have Christmas....
I like that response because it helps me to understand.
The media today treats sexual misconduct in general with open discussion and or disparagement especially if it involves a conservative or religious figure.
It seems to me that MLK hasn’t gotten his day in the sunshine on this conduct because of media bias and the desire of many to not talk about this kind of stuff.
The FBI apparently told its buddies in the media-government that MLK did like white women (just like Tiger) for his sexual encounters as well.
Because in 1983 a whole lot of politicians wanted to (surprise, surprise) pander to blacks, and so they passed this law. Enough time had gone by and King's legend had grown to where it seemed a benign enough gesture. The tragic assassination was, of course, the deal closer.
...Now known as "the holiday season".
At least his public persona (his sex mania notwithstanding) had some class. I could think of far worse figures to use for such “pandering.”
Except for that funny old Santa Claus who insists on going “Ho Ho Ho Merry Christmas.” I guess he’s the only one still allowed to do so :-)
Dr. Martin Luther King “...did not want to be a saint or viewed as a saint. He was just a human being, capable of becoming and producing and leading his people out of the wilderness of segregation into the promised land...”
And Obama is reversing every bit of Kings work.
Both Kennedy’s and King were elevated to godlike status by the circumstances of their deaths.
In life, they were complex and controversial figures, but in death they achieved an unreal status.
A status as unreal as the double life sexual fantasy world all three inhabited.
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