5 Commonly Whitewashed Aspects of Dr. King’s Life and Death
By: Matthew John
Tags: Politics, Civil Rights, Martin Luther King, BlackLivesMatter, History

“We made an indifferent and unconcerned nation rise from lethargy and subpoenaed its conscience to appear before the judgment seat of morality on the whole question of civil rights.” (Dr. King, 1967)

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was a Baptist minister, a brilliant orator, and a prolific civil rights leader who was assassinated in 1968 at age 39. Today he is primarily remembered for his “I Have a Dream” speech, his role in organizing the Montgomery bus boycott, and for receiving the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964. King’s life of activism helped inspire the passage of historic racial justice legislation, including the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Acts of 1965, and the Fair Housing Act of 1968.

Americans are taught that Dr. King was a popular and universally cherished leader. King, we are told, was charismatic, passionate, yet essentially non-political; he wanted to make the world a better place without rocking the boat. However, the Revered Martin Luther King, Jr. was a complicated historical figure, and our collective understanding of his legacy is oversimplified. Here are five facts about Dr. King that are often omitted from American discourse.

1. King constantly criticized American capitalism.

In addition to his well-known battle against racism, Dr. King was a tireless advocate for economic justice. He regularly worked with labor unions, and even wrote the introduction to a popular booklet that proposed a “second New Deal,” which was distributed by prominent unions. King’s economic vision largely stemmed from his religious faith and his belief in the “social gospel.”

In his final speech to the Southern Christian Leadership Conference in 1967, King said:

“One day we must ask the question, ‘Why are there forty million poor people in America?’ When you ask that question, you begin to question the capitalistic economy.”

This wariness toward capitalism was not a late-in-life phenomenon. Here are a few excerpts from a speech Dr. King gave in 1956:

“They tell me that one tenth of one percent of the population controls more than forty percent of the wealth. Oh America, how often have you taken necessities from the masses to give luxuries to the classes. If you are to be a truly Christian nation you must solve this problem.” “You can work within the framework of democracy to bring about a better distribution of wealth. You can use your powerful economic resources to wipe poverty from the face of the earth. God never intended for one group of people to live in superfluous inordinate wealth, while others live in abject deadening poverty. God intends for all of his children to have the basic necessities of life, and he has left in this universe ‘enough and to spare' for that purpose. So I call upon you to bridge the gulf between abject poverty and superfluous wealth.”

King’s anti-capitalist stance can even be verified as early as 1952. That year, in a letter to his wife Coretta, King wrote, “I imagine you already know that I am much more socialistic in my economic theory than capitalistic. […] Today capitalism has outlived its usefulness.”

2. He was vehemently anti-war.

The general public was first introduced to Dr. King’s anti-war perspective in 1965, when he told reporters that “millions of dollars can be spent every day to hold troops in South Viet Nam and our country cannot protect the rights of Negroes in Selma.” During the following years, King continued to articulate his vision for peace, ultimately culminating in his 1967 “Beyond Vietnam” speech. Here are several pertinent excerpts from that message, which King delivered on April 4, 1967 at Riverside Church in Harlem: