Martin Luther King was Communist? [Archive]

redstar2000

8th January 2006, 01:41

I'm surprised to see that "old chestnut" is still around.

No, King was never in any sense a "communist"...just a preacher who wanted to "bring the message of Christian brotherhood" to those sinful white folks.

Some say he was approaching a communist view towards the end of his life...but I imagine that's a disputable contention.

Neither the Highlander Folk School nor the Southern Conference Educational Fund were "communist" in any sense of the word...just good southern New Deal liberals. In fact, I think they were both founded back in the late 1930s or not long afterwards to bring the New Deal to southern black people.

And this topic, by the way, belongs in the History forum.

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Guerrilla22

8th January 2006, 02:28

:lol: Everyone who didn't follow mainstream politics in the US back then was supposedly a communist. That article is from a newspaper published in Georgia no less.

JKP

8th January 2006, 06:02

"There must be a better distribution of wealth and maybe America must move toward a Democratic Socialism." -MLK

Hiero

8th January 2006, 08:44

He would have found that the Communist Party was a good ally in his fight for civil rights for the Black Nation.

Ownthink

8th January 2006, 17:04

Originally posted by [email protected] 8 2006, 01:13 AM
"There must be a better distribution of wealth and maybe America must move toward a Democratic Socialism." -MLK
I was recently reading an issue of a magazine I get, and this issue dealed with Civil Rights. It said that MLK, in his later life, moved toward a Democratic Socialist stance and that he thought there was too much a gap between Rich and Poor and in order for any real change to be made, that gap would have to be eliminated.

James

8th January 2006, 17:16

His speeches for one became far more leftward leaning toward the end of his life. I think it would be inaccurate to descirbe him as a communist though.

BuyOurEverything

9th January 2006, 01:01

'The communist doctrine of racial nationalism'? Word.

Soheran

9th January 2006, 04:32

Martin Luther King definitely leaned towards socialism, but he was no Communist. Like Oscar Romero and other left-wing religious leaders he rejected violent revolution and likely was not too fond of the doctrine of class struggle.

The connection between the black civil rights movement and the American radical left is a well-documented one, however. The Communist Party and the Socialist Party were among the few outspoken voices on civil rights issues before the 1950s, and the work they did lay the foundations for what was to come.

Proletar

9th January 2006, 07:09

sounds very much as propaganda

praxis1966

10th January 2006, 07:45

You have to remember who we're talking about. This is the state of Georgia in the 1950s folks, not exactly what I'd call a Mecca of intelligent thought. I mean, it says right there in the text that the photo was taken by an 'employee of the state of Georgia.' This is probably a cryptic way of saying a member of some state police task force that in essence was intelligence gathering, in the same fashion Hoover's FBI was, took the picture.

And like someone earlier said, just about every activist back then got labeled 'part of the international communist conspiracy,' whether justified or not. It's called red baiting, a practice that dates back to the 1920s if I recall correctly.

Atlas Swallowed

10th January 2006, 14:48

He was becoming not only a leader of Black Americans but a leader for all poor and working class. He was not a Communist but was probably a Socialist at heart at least. The government percieved him as a threat, the government assassinated him. To the small minded rednecks Communism is the greatest of all evils, I don't understand why and thats probably a good thing. Another smear of a great man who smeared constantly by the corrupt government of the United States. They made his birthday a national holiday, what fucking hypocrites.

timbaly

12th January 2006, 20:27

That newspaper article certainly looks like propaganda to me just as many of the others have pointed out. King was certainly no communist, he denied ever being a member of any communist party throughout his life. He even once removed an individual who was formerly a member of the communist party from working with him. Governement officials at the time even called him on the hiring of this person as a way to discredit he and his movement.

Everyday Anarchy

12th January 2006, 22:01

COINTELPRO, anyone?

For anyone who doesn't know what that is, it was an FBI program (Counter Intelligenice Program) that had the goal to infilitrate, disrupt, and discredit dissent groups. Martin Luther King, Jr. and his church congregation were victims of COINTELPRO's lies. They spread lies about MLK, Jr. stealing money from his church's donation box and planning to flee the country with it.

I wouldn't be shocked if that photo was a fake. COINTELPRO originally went after the Communist Party, I'm sure they could use some older ideas in newer situations.

timbaly

13th January 2006, 00:31

Xero you could be right, but I doubt that this propaganda goes that far. It seems pretty basic and not too well thought out. It even links King to the Kennedy's, I'm not to sure that the FBI would want to do that.

Red Flag Rising

13th January 2006, 22:57

MLK was a socialist, he didn't lean to socialism, he told his closest aides and friends that he was a socialist.

He did train at the Highlander Folk School in Tenn. founded by a communist named Myles Horton. My father trained there as well in 1955. This is pretty well established in his biographies, why should we run away from it?

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max rspct

13th January 2006, 23:54

Many people went along to those things.. tho it could be forgery
King was more of a christian socialist if anything like that :ph34r:

ReD_ReBeL

14th January 2006, 01:05

yea i would say a Christian socialist to. yes i think he was probably assasinated by the US gov, because not long before he was killed he was thinking of abandaning his pascifist outlook to a more serious Malcolm X-esque outlook

Cullmac

14th January 2006, 17:52

King was openly critisised when he campaigned up north and convinced the mayor of Chicargo to use tax payers money to improve black living conditions, now naturally American's saw this as 'distributing the wealth' which they saw as a communist idea. He also openly critisised the Vietnam war, but to say he was a communist is definatly right wing propaganda, as a historian i just think he believed in a fairer society.

Hiero

22nd January 2006, 12:55

It was also a tactic of the ruling class of the US to claim the Black Nation were happy with their conditions, and it was just the communist stiring things up. This happen in Australia with the Aboriginal nation too.

Soheran

22nd January 2006, 16:26

MLK was a socialist, he didn't lean to socialism, he told his closest aides and friends that he was a socialist.

Right, but "socialism" means lots of different things to different people. It is possible that King did not mean the seizure of the means of production by the proletariat, but rather more moderate social democratic tendencies.

coda

22nd January 2006, 16:52

I don't know what he was politically. But, people try like hell to discredit him. I ran into a very disparaging site about him on the internent, that was just disgusting. I do know, however, that he galvanized the black community and put class struggle on the map here in the US. The full impact and significance of what he did has still yet to be felt.