Donna Ladd, editor and CEO of the Mississippi Free Press, writes here about the sustained rightwing effort to co-opt Dr. Martin Luther King’s legacy of militant resistance to racism and his dedication to telling the truth about our tarnished history. This is an important essay. It’s about a concerted attempt to hijack the words of Dr. King by those who hate his message. It’s about conservative white people like Chris Rufo and Ron DeSantis trying to use his words to prevent honest teaching about the history of racism. I have left the fund-raising appeals in the article because I hope you will send some money to this brave publication.
She writes, powerfully:
I grew up hearing people around me badmouthing Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. To hear white folk in east central Mississippi in the 1960s and 1970s tell it, he was the very root of all evil, and everything wrong in their lives was his damn fault. He had marched in my hometown of Philadelphia, Miss., in 1966 amid violent chaos when I was a kid—he spoke near the murderers of James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner by law-enforcement officials.
Yes, Dr. King gave his life in the search for more love and less hate, but he was not only spreading a message of love, as so many white thieves of his legacy try to say today. His message was pure fire. And he was out to hold a mirror up to our nation about white Americans—not only Mississippians and southerners—using terror to maintain power over everyone else and to enjoy the fruits of that terrorism.
Throughout his life, Dr. King toiled and ultimately sacrificed his life in the fight to change power structures and systems established and enforced to keep white people on the top and Black people on the bottom. He wanted America to understand that enslaved people built this nation—after many of their enslavers figured out how to steal the land from Indigenous Americans and forcefully remove them from the land they coveted.
None of this history is pretty or honorable, and Dr. King never tried to say it was or to cover up any of it. He wanted it taught to every person in this country and certainly wanted children to grow up having learned the lessons of the past. He knew that the “arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” And he was blunt that he was not likely to live long enough to see that happen.
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When a white man shot him at the Lorraine Hotel in Memphis, Dr. King was more focused than ever on systemic racism and its links with poverty, and he was a harsh critic of capitalism and the Vietnam War. He was putting together the Poor People’s Campaign intending to occupy Washington, D.C., to bring more attention to the racism-poverty connection.
Of course, I didn’t know all that until I was well into adulthood. I knew most white folks in Mississippi hated him, and he was a martyred hero against racism. Like many Americans, I was fed the whitewashed version of Dr. King, which has worsened over the decades. I was nearly 40 when I studied with Dr.Manning Marable at Columbia University and learned the larger and more accurate history of Dr. King, Malcolm X, Marcus Garvey, and many Black freedom fighters. I’ve also read his speeches; I know fully what Dr. King was about and what he supported.
Just read his “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop Speech” in Memphis.
Now, 54 years after Dr. King went to Memphis to support a labor strike by sanitary workers, we see so many arrogant efforts by white Americans to remake him into their preferred hero—you know, the one who would tell us all now to forget all that sticky history and get along despite the systemic inequities our history embedded into our nation’s DNA.
It would be funny if it weren’t so sick and offensive. Right here in Jackson, a public-policy institute led by a former Brexiteer from the U.K. used a photo of Dr. King and his words out of context in a report a year ago to push legislation against so-called “critical race theory” in schools. Their report argued the precise opposite of what the Black freedom hero said or wanted. They even twisted his call for “being judged by the content of their character” out of context to make absurd statements about Dr. King, like this one: “Instead of celebrating the enormous achievements made since the Civil Rights Movement, critical race theory specifically rejects King’s color blind ideal and seeks to racialize every aspect of culture, sport, and public discourse.”
“Color-blind ideal”? That’s what this institute—and its board of prominent white Mississippians—think Dr. King meant by the need for white Americans to stop judging people by the color of their skin? Seriously? That’s some shoddy thinking. Or propaganda, as it were. Such cynicism can explain why this institute claiming Dr. King’s moral ground as its own has nine white men and two white women on its board.
As we consider Dr. King’s legacy this weekend, we must study the whole legacy. No serious person can argue that he would want this nation to block the teaching of our full race history from colleges, schools and homes. No serious person would say that he would want us to simply be proud of how far we’ve come and not examine how far we’ve got to go—until that arc bends toward actual justice and inequity is no longer baked into our systems. No serious person thinks Dr. King would not want us to interrogate how and why inequity became baked into our systems and how to fix them so they don’t keep replicating themselves.
And no serious person would argue that Dr. King would not want the systemic history of slavery, massacres and lynchings that helped end Reconstruction and install Jim Crow, the story of little Ruby Bridges or our Medgar Evers or Lamar Smith down in Brookhaven, the story of ongoing attacks on public education since integration—or the full story of his real dreams taught to every American on this road to eradicating the baked-in legacies of racial suppression and white supremacy.
I get it. Complaining that teaching real race history is somehow “Marxism”—which no serious person would do, either—is bringing back the stunts and propaganda the rich and powerful white people used successfully to scare white folks back in the 1950s and 1960s and even inspire violence against Dr. King and Mr. Evers. The rewriting of history is sick politics. But it is a stunt that all serious people of any party who are, indeed, working not to judge people by their skin color must reject loudly and definitively.
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. gave his life to speak truth to power. We owe it to him to continue doing just that.
Donna Ladd, Editor and CEO
[I am not inserting a link because I can’t find one. Google Mississippi Free Press. If you find a link, please send it.]
I am sending my third contribution this year to MFP.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Diane, link to what are you looking for? The article?
This article when posted had no link.
If republican right wingers couldn’t tell lies, they’d have nothing to talk about.
Blessings on Ms. Ladd for going after those who would whitewash Dr. King’s powerful legacy.
Here’s why the rightwing killed him when they did:
King, who never lacked vision, had made the fateful decision to expand his crusade. Rightwing servants of the US oligarchy in our government hated King’s history of flirtation with the Communist Party. And his Civil Rights activism. And his opposition to the utterly illegal, utterly immoral war in Vietnam.
But even worse, even more fundamental, Dr. King had recently made a huge change in his basic message. It was no longer just about inequity as it affected blacks. He had started saying in his speeches that his crusade was not a black/white thing, per se, but an economic thing. That it was a poor/rich thing. That the poor white rural Southerner or urban tenement dweller ought to be an ally, for they had a common enemy. That poor white folk, urban and rural, were suffering the same injustice as black people do and should join King against their common enemy, which made a mockery of the promise of America.
And then he showed up to throw his support behind striking workers. Not striking black workers. Striking sanitation workers white, black, brown, whatever.
This scared the polo pants off the oligarchs. King was a powerful, charismatic leader. Imagine a WORKER’S movement with him at the head of it–something bigger, even more effective than was the movement that created unions in the first place. Imagine the great Revend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., stepping into the shoes of Emma Goldman and Joe Hill and Samuel Gompers and John L. Lewis.
Imagine poor whites marching with him. Imagine poor whites no longer voting against themselves.
Imagine them joining with people of color to demand a more equitable society.
So, the servants of the rich nipped this in the bud and got what they wanted–the subsequent generations of idiot white Republican poor supporting those who opposed their every interest.
They did a pretty good job of the cover story for his assassination.
And, ofc, we have his last speech. He knew. He knew what they were going to do.
How many people in the US are even aware that the King family won a civil suit in 1999 that claimed –and presented evidence for — a conspiracy to kill King involving the Dixie mafia and higher ups in the US government?
Even bringing this up is a touchy subject for the American media because if was a real trial involving extensive witness testimony under oath and a decision after just three hours of deliberation by a jury with 6 black and 6 white members.
And as you can well imagine, simply calling the King family “crazy conspiracy theorists” is probably not going to go over well.with either the King family or with the millions of other African Americans in this country.
Said Martin Luther King’s widow, Coretta Scott King a day after the verdict in the King family’s favor, “I think that if people will look at the evidence that we have, it’s conclusive and I think the Justice Department has a responsibility to do what it feels is the right thing to do, the just thing to do””
The American mainstream media rarely even mention the civil suit, which is why few Americans are even aware that it happened, to say nothing of the details.
That a jury decided in favor of the King family claims doesn’t mean it’s true, of course, since juries do get things wrong.
But if is nonetheless interesting that the civil suit is almost never mentioned by the mainstream media.
I had never even heard of it until a couple years ago.
This link took me to MFP website. https://www.mississippifreepress.org/category/news
Thanks for making us aware of Donna L and this great newsletter!
Agreed. She’s awesome.
Thank you, Donna Ladd, for speaking TRUTH.
What bugs me the most is turning Martin Luther King day into a Volunteer day and feeling good about ourselves for that without making the changes that Dr. King preached.
I understand, but the simple truth is troubling. We volunteers and feel-gooders outnumber the racists and pigs, but TOO FEW OF US ARE VOTERS!
There was not one adult person I knew around me who thought King was who we see him today. Even my parents, who were remarkably kind people, saw him as a person who stirred up trouble. My uncle warned us of his communist, subversive nature. Years later, I was grown up and was getting something down at the town garage. A member of the community came in complaining that it was a bad day. Among the bad things he enumerated was the death of James Earl Ray, “that guy that killed that N____”.
These are the seeds of modern fascism I saw sprouting. All these future Trumpists spent the next 40 years grumbling privately that their white boy sensitivities had been violated. This attitude was exploiting by Nixon, Reagan, Bush I, Bush II, and countless other mountebanks.
My experience growing up in South Carolina was much the same. Dr. King went around stirring up trouble.
“A South politician preaches to the poor white man
“You got more than the blacks, don’t complain
You’re better than them, you been born with white skin,” they explain
And the Negro’s name
Is used, it is plain
For the politician’s gain
As he rises to fame
And the poor white remains
On the caboose of the train
But it ain’t him to blame
He’s only a pawn in their game.” Bob Dylan
Prophetic?
Apologies if you’ve read this before. The independent schools in which I taught in the 80s did not recognize MLK Jr. Day as a holiday, so I used to read the same essay to all my classes every year I taught. Relates to what you wrote. A film was made of this a few years ago, but I tend to stay away from films based on writings I like.
Click to access p198.pdf
“Among the bad things he enumerated was the death of James Earl Ray, “that guy that killed that N____”.”
I recall a complaint about the news coverage King and others were getting: “Everything he says gets put on the front page, but when Lurleen Wallace died they put her on page 9!”
If DeSantis becomes President, he will do everything in his power to whitewash history and erase Dr. King’s legacy. With a GOP majority they will try to erase more than sixty years of Civil Rights progress.
yup
The day DeSantis becomes President is the day Martin
Luther King becomes White
T
The Fight for Civil Whites
If Ron becomes the president
Then Martin turns to white
Cuz anti-woke’s the precedent
And history’s the fight
The MLK who is celebrated today is a castrated version of the powerful leader whom he was, the one who made the boss man whites shake in their boots. To hear his name evoked by the likes of Ted Cruz or Paul Gosar or Matt Gaetz or The Orange Idiot or Josh Hawley or Ron DeSantis or Glenn Youngkin is simply sickening. Pick them up from the present. Drop them down then, in King’s day. And they would be indistinguishable from Orval Faubus and Theophilus “Bull” Connor. They represent everything King loathed and fought.
cx: the powerful leader he was
I would suggest that the Faubuses and Connors would be very distinguishable today from most successful republicans. The clowns you cite are obvious with one exception: Youngkin. I have seen his type entrenched in Ohio politics for two decades now. When I compare them to the buffoons from the South I knew–many of whom are now everywhere in this nation–there is a big difference. They are outwardly benign, even boring, and that makes them an asset for the party. They vote and act exactly as venally as the clown posse, but hardly anyone notices them and they are deemed “serious.” Get ready for an onslaught of them them over the next two election cycles. You don’t need dogs to quell dissent. The halls of power will do just fine.
Ideologically, they would not be distinguishable. In their histrionics, definitely distinguishable from the Youngkin lookalikes, from the ones who go to some length to appear as though they don’t froth at the mouth, though they do.
We are in agreement, I was referring to style, should have made that clearer. Ideologically, there’s not much of a difference between Faubus and DeWine and DeSantis and all de other ones.
But, in defending the real Dr. King, let’s remember MANY white people DID follow him, and still do. Let’s remember that most white people did not own slaves in the days of that horrible practice. (Some couldn’t afford to, some thought it was wrong–like some of my ancestors, according to my grandmother). Some of us white guys were inspired by the real King and all that he stood for–including his support of public employees. He helped inspire some of us–black and white–public employees to resist unjust laws–like the laws that said teachers couldn’t strike, etc. And he supported our anti-war movement. (I wonder what he would say about our militarism today)?
In short, let’s be careful with oversimplifying and painting with too broad a brush. Peace, JB
If people are to be judged by the content of their characters, what does that say about Twitter?
It is not about the color of Kanye’s skin, but the content of his characters.
“olor is only skin deep”
A person should be judged
By content of their tweet
By characters thereof
For color is skin deep
Elon should be judged
By content of his tweet
His character is smudged
And stock is in retreat
“No serious person thinks Dr. King…. …. no serious person would argue that Dr. King….”
But that’s NOT correct! There are MILLIONS of Americans who DO seriously believe these thoughts and arguments. There are MILLIONS more who know they are FALSE–or don’t care–, but are STILL serious about spreading them for their own gain.
This is America.
“It’s about conservative white people like Chris Rufo and Ron DeSantis trying to use his words to prevent honest teaching about the history of racism.”
Ron DeSantis and all those that think, act, and talk like him are not conservatives. Because their end goal apparently is the same as WWII’s Nazis, that makes them Nazis, too.
Has anyone seen the Amazon Original TV series, the Hunters? The Hunters may be fiction based on historical facts, but Operation Paper Clip was real.
“Operation Paperclip was a secret United States intelligence program in which more than 1,600 German scientists, engineers, and technicians were taken from the former Nazi Germany to the U.S. for government employment after the end of World War II in Europe, between 1945 and 1959.”
What isn’t mentioned in that Wiki pull quote above is the fact that CIA, that got its name changed from the OSS to the CIA in 1947, also recruited Nazi War Criminals to work for them as spies. In fact, a former Nazi general that was one of the founders/planners behind the Final Solution ended up running the CIAs European operations into the 1970s and eventually died of old age after the CIA forced him to retire.
The CIA also hired Nazi agents to train CIA agents to be as ruthless and Nazis, after evidence of their war crimes was hidden, wiped clean.
Many of those Nazis became US citizens, raised families, and spread their Nazi values, that are still among us today, walking around, looking just like Derainged Demonic DeSantis.
This story reminds of what happened in the building of a museum in Budapest which is now called The House of Terror. The building was used by the Hungarian Nazis as a prison where they tortured and executed political prisoners, and after WW2, it was used for the same purpose by the Communist regime. It turns out that the communists used the same guards as the Nazis. When asked about this, a communist leader famously replied “The tools of suppression is independent of ideology”.
Indeed, why waste the skills of the guards when the job was the same as it had been during the Nazis?
Look no further than the story of Wernher Von Braun.
Nazi bioweapons scientists were also brought to the US (-eg, to plum Island in Long Island sound)
Many of those Nazis became US citizens, raised families, and spread their Nazi values,”
When you put it that way, it almost sounds normal.
Nazi family values