Martin Luther King Jr. A communist?

[ashtonh]

Hello many supporters and funders of Dr. King were communist. He placed communist in leading positions in his organization. What do you guys think. I know he was at least sympathetic, maybe even one himself.

[Ritzy Cat]

Not really. He was more of a reformer than a revolutionary. Bringing communists to leading positions in the organization would have likely served more as a general resistance to the government, more pressure to pass Civil Rights legislature.

[BIXX]

O have heard he presented critiques of capitalism. I don't know if that's true though.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

nope, although for what it's worth I think he was a damn sight more radical than many of the white middle-class "oh MLK and his beautiful non-violence" folk give him credit for.

Whilst he was a reformer to a large extent, in the sense that he pursued a short-term strategy of an end to segregation and equal rights for african-americans under the law, I also think it's true that he has been co-opted by the white capitalist class more after his death than during his life-time.

Don't forget that he mobilised the civil rights movement using illegal means on a national level, and somebody found him such a threat that they took him out. It's only years later in schools that kids are taught to think of him as no more threatening than a labrador.

[Bala Perdida]

He was involved in tackling the wealth inequality in all parts of the US after segregation was over with. Those protests where just as violently suppressed. He was also killed while campaigning for a more equal wealth distribution.

[Atsumari]

“Communism forgets that life is individual. Capitalism forgets that life is social, and the kingdom of brotherhood is found neither in the thesis of communism nor the antithesis of capitalism but in a higher synthesis. It is found in a higher synthesis that combines the truths of both.”
From what I saw from MLK, he seemed more like a social democrat or democratic socialist, especially when he talked about wealth inequality.

[GiantMonkeyMan]

I don't think that it was so much 'he placed communists in key positions'. Communists were an important part of the building of the Civil Rights movement, figures like Bayard Rustin and A. Philip Randolph were integral to the organisation of the March on Washington movement, WEB DuBois had been fighting the Jim Crow laws for years etc. You couldn't have had a civil rights movement if it hadn't been for the groundwork laid out by the far left.

[adipocere]

MLK became more radical in his later years. I think he would easily qualify as a socialist though he never publicly claimed to be anything other than a democrat. It should be pointed out that a citizen being a democrat in Alabama even 20 years ago was radical in it's own way.
Just to add an ancedotal story - in 08 my mother voted for Obama and put a sign out in her yard which was constantly "vandalized" so she kept a stack of them. One night some rednecks sprayed the sign with bullets. Yes, you read that right. They shot up her yard in the middle of the night over an Obama sign in 2008. The fired about 6 shots and she was so frightened that she had to call the police. For context, she lives in the southern part the state, long considered the most liberal area of Alabama.

[RedWorker]

Call it democracy, or call it democratic socialism, but there must be a better distribution of wealth within this country for all God’s children.



May 1965 speech to the Negro American Labor Council. Quoted in Thomas F. Jackson, From Civil Rights to Human Rights: Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Struggle for Economic Justice. (2009) p. 230.

[RedWorker]

So today capitalism has outlived its usefulness. It has brought about a system that takes necessities from the masses to give luxuries to the classes.

(source (http://mlk-kpp01.stanford.edu/index.php/encyclopedia/documentsentry/to_coretta_scott/))

[RedHal]

I think there is a text of his speach out there where he states he's not a communist. Basically to MLKjr, Communism = Marxism, and since Marxism is materialist and he believed in a god, he couldn't be a Communist. I think Atsumari's quote is from that speach.

[Trap Queen Voxxy]

I'm pretty sure the only person who's ever genuinely thought MLK was Communist was J Edgar Hoover. Consider the source.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

The issue isn't really whether he was a communist or not. He was a leader of a civil rights movement whose aim was the end of segregation by race; this was followed post-1965 by the more militant groups within the Black Panther milieu who wanted to go beyond legal equality and address the obvious social discrimination blacks, and in particular poor blacks in the North, faced even after the Civil and Voting Rights Acts of 1964 and 1965 outlawed segregation by race.

To this end, we should alter our answers from 'yes he was a good guy, a communist'/'no he was just a social democrat' binary-style thinking to an actual, historical analysis of the importance of this individual in:

a) starting the civil rights movement
b) progressing the civil rights movement
c) effecting genuine change in racial relations in the US
d) effecting a revolutionary upheaval in the US based on the effectiveness of a), b), and c).

What do people think?

[4thInter]

I'm pretty sure he had met with democratic socialists in the padt

[ashtonh]

Ok from what I've gathered he was not an Ayn Rand Capitalist most likely A social democrat, truly we may never know for what a man says and what is in his heart are different things. Lets just admire him for the brave man he was (social democrat or otherwise) and celebrate his achievements.

[ProletariatPower]

I agree with most people here he could probably be considered a Democratic Socialist, he was against not only racism but also inequality in society, and furthermore I believe MLK not only wanted reforms but genuinely wanted a new society to be built (hence why I consider him a Socialist, rather than Democrat). He didn't seem to believe in a revolution but most of his ideas were 'revolutionary' and he should be respected and celebrated for his achievements in improving society.

[NDMP Chairman]

It is true that he had many commie, socialist, and black panther followers, but MLK jr. was a civil reformer rather than a revolutionary. He supported JFK who was extremely anti-communist, and he himself was a right-wing minister. Hardly communist material. He foyght for racial equality rather than socioeconomic (though that factors in later on). My verdict: Not a commie.

[Alan OldStudent]

Hello many supporters and funders of Dr. King were communist. He placed communist in leading positions in his organization. What do you guys think. I know he was at least sympathetic, maybe even one himself.
Here's a video about MLK, socialism, and war that was made during the height of the Occupy movement. It was made hoping to educate newly-radicalizing people about some of the issues MLK raised about the nature of capitalism and US imperialism, as well as the workers' movement.

Regards,

Alan OldStudent
The unexamined life is not worth living—Socrates
Gracias a la vida, que me ha dado tanto—Violeta Parra



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[Dagoth Ur]

MLK was in Memphis to attend a worker's strike. I'm still convinced that his turn towards working class activism is what led to the FBI green-lighting his assassination.

[Comrade #138672]

Is it not more important what he did in a material sense than what he believed himself to be?

[OGLemon]

I believe that MLK was a democratic socialist or possibly a social democrat.