I don’t see MLK as a mixed bag at all. I just see him for what he was-—another leftwing radical.
He called our troops war criminals, said the U.S. was the biggest purveyor of violence in the world, and he was a “pastor” who didn’t believe in the divinity of Jesus.
I don’t waste my time trying to find out if Obama, Holder, or John Kerry did good deeds, and I see no reason to bother with King, either.
You raise an interesting point re King’s April 1967 speech on Vietnam. I’m not sure who wrote the infamous phrase that “the US was the greatest purveyor of violence in the world”.
Two items. I’ve heard names mentioned from Harry Belafonte to one of King’s staff, etc. I believe the answer may have been printed in a book I haven’t see so far. Don’t recall its’ name.
Secondary, the term “purveyor of violence” re the US was used in Red Chinese articles/radio broadcasts during the “Cultural Revolution” as least during the time I was monitoring them for a grad school project (late 1966-1967).
Interesting word “purveyor”. Usually used as a commercial term as in “purveyor of the finest wines, foods, etc.”
King was surrounded by leftists ranging from Andy Young (the least radical of those leftists); Jack O’Dell (Communist Party USA and Soviet asset; Rev. Shuttlesworth, hardcore leftist; Rev. James Bevel, avowedly pro Hanoi - along with his wife - he went to jail for molesting his daughter when she was young; a then radical Rev. Ralph D. Abernathy, and VP of the Soviet KGB “peace” front, the World Peace Council; another Rev. named Farris, and others.
By 1967, it looks like King had changed his opposition to Communism (which he forcefully denounced earlier in his career), or was forced to change his position by those leftists and communists around him.
These are issues which need not only more, deep scholarly research, plus opening all the FBI and CIA files on King, but which need to be aired and discussed publicly by the MSMedia.