(01-15-2024 04:34 PM)Native Georgian Wrote:  Looking back, 95 years after his birth, I think of him mainly as a good man who articulated the need for racial equality in the broader society, in a way that was persuasive to many people who hadn’t been persuaded of it before. I thank him for that.

This. End of story as far as I'm concerned. None of us are perfect... and he certainly wasn't either... nor were the results of his efforts here... but he had the right idea... in this arena.

I think this comes too much from 'hero' worship. I can admire what someone did without having to sign on to everything they did.

Was Martin Luther King a hero, or a villain?

Neither…. Dr. King was a martyr.

The Lyndon B. Johnson administration considered Dr. King a troublemaker so they had him shot. That’s the assertion of Dexter King.

Unfortunately Dr. King was worth more to the civil rights movement dead than he was alive. I’ve never read it but I believe Dr. King knew it too.

Dr. King was far from a perfect man. With that being said, he’s one of the few historical figures of the last half of the 20th century that I would have liked to have met.

I had the pleasure of meeting and interviewing Ali in 1979. We talked about his fair housing work with Dr. King in Louisville. Dr. King’s death affected Ali deeply.