When Did Martin Luther King Become The Most Important Person In American History?

toogoodreports.com ^ | January 20, 2003 | Lowell Phillips

[ConservativeMan55]

Excellent Article! Bravo!

[Radix]

Too tired right now to read it all.
It is true though.
The reason is, MLK and his words makes my spine tingle!
Just words,just words!
Forty years later it is still so!


Merely words!

[ErnBatavia]

I kinda love un-PC musings....this was great

[Malesherbes]

This is a dangerous subject to discuss, and that fact says a lot about contemporary American society.

[Humidston]

I was there. I lived it. IMHO, he was a Jesse Jackson with manners. He was arrogant, he swaggered, he *politely* bullied his way around the country, copying Ghandi. In the back rooms, he was a womanizer and he associated with people of questionable character. Give me a Jessie Lee Peterson over MLK any day!

What we have here is an excellent example of revisionist history. Nobody wants to say the emperor had no clothes.

[ctnoell70]

MLK's cult of personality in America is starting to rival that of Saddam Hussein in Iraq. And there are those civil rights leaders who think Dr. King is not honored enough!

[jraven]

What a dumb item. No one has EVER said that MLK was the "most important person" in US history. All some folks are saying, and the holiday indicates, is that he was a major figure in US history. The manner of his death also made him a martyr. I can't think of anything I have read or anyone I have heard (liberal, moderate) who has ever claimed he is the most important person in US history. This kind of tripe gives conservatives a real bad image.

[RnMomof7]

A local mom was talking to her 3rd grade daughter last year..the girl was a walking encyclopedia on Black history and had NO CLUE who George Washington or Abe Lincoln were on Presidents day..

[kcar]

The emperor is naked already. MLK was a collectivist-leftie and this day of honour is the most dreadfully awful display of bogus pandering to race-baiters conceivable. Bush rushing out to a black church, the rats whining that they're more genuinely black. Please...! I don't ever want to hear the word diversity again, not even with a small "d".
How about a Bill of Rights day? Taxpayer freedom day?

[ctnoell70]

NOT a dumb idea! If Ronald Reagan was rammed downed my throat as Dr. King is year after year, I would complain about that also. Furthermore, MLK has a few skeletons in his closet that are worth imvestigating (his ties to the Communist Party, for one). Such arrogance shown for limiting debate on this issue doesn't exactly help conservatism either.

[sarasmom]

Big Bump!

My child is in second grade, and is being told that MLK is the greatest man who ever lived in this country.She has no idea who Abe Lincoln was.She was taught that George Washington was greedy, and that all whites are greedy

Go figure

We had a wonderfull talk about how white and black and red people used to treat each other back in the old days, and how Lincoln and MLK just wanted us to treat each other based on how we acted, not by the color of our skins.

The ongoing pittfalls of trying to raise my child color-blind, as MLK rightly advocated,and avoiding the "white guilt" the current batch of race-baiting media whores and liberal history revisionists tout as truth, while teaching her to respect her Sioux ancestry is starting to make my head spin.

[goodseedhomeschool]

Most homeschoolers give very little attention to mlk, or malcome x, I think perhaps this is why homeschoolers are walking away with many of the national spelling bee and geography bees. I really is a crying shame that public school kids know more trivial things, than things of real importance.

[John H K]

I was in elementary school in the 70s, about a 40% black school, and I'd say we easily spent 3 or 4 more times studying Harriet Tubman than MLK.

And more time on Tubman than Washington, Lincoln, and Jefferson combined.

MLK has committed the crime of being a man...Tubman is even more PC because she was a black WOMAN.

[John H K]

As much as I agree that SOME stuff on FR gives conservatives a bad image, people aren't really exaggerating on this thread.

It depends on how old you are and where you went to school...

But there are many locales where more will be taught about MLK (and Harriet Tubman, etc.) than Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, FDR, JFK, and Reagan COMBINED in elementary school (particularly) but also in Junior and Senior High. The most extreme school districts will add a heavy dose of Malcolm X too but I personally did not experience this in the 70s.

That's an obvious indication that educators BELIEVE MLK was the most important person in US history, even if they don't say so in so many words.

[yooper]

All I know is, I didn't get my damn mail today. Not sure if that's good or bad.

That said, I agree with the author. MLK was certainly an enigma and true folk hero of the 20th century, and not just to blacks.

And that said, I can with little effort point out many other great Americans who are equally or more deserving of a national holiday. Teddy Roosevelt springs to mind, as does George Washington Carver. Carver arguably did more for American blacks than MLK. Thoughts?

[mlmr]

About the same time that Doctor Suess's birthday became more important than Jesus Christ's

[LenS]

In my mind, the biggest mark against MLK has been the behavior of many of his associates and of his family since his murder. Their naked greed has been sad and reminds me of the aphorism that one is judged by the company one keeps.

The biggest mark for him was that he did stick to non-violence, helping produced a relatively non-violent end to segregation. Something that today's protester's have no clue about -- for some reason they think that a broken window, lots of profanity, and even some nudity will persuade others of the rightness of their cause. The "I Have A Dream" March would look very different if it occurred today.

[Jeff Chandler]

I told my homeschooled daughter that MLK was an important symbol of the civil rights movement of the '60s, whose intention it was to promote the uniquely American ideal of equality. We certainly don't obsess over him.

[Hunble]

Jessie Jackson has managed to nullify everything that Martin Luther King stood for.

Can we call it even?