Olivet College will be honoring, and rightfully so, Martin Luther King Jr. on January 23rd. We will hear a presentation delivered by George F. Francis III, a member of the Olivet Board of Trustees. The speech will attempt to demonstrate how King's dream of a color-blind society must now be seen through the lens of personal responsibility.
I agree that a color-blind society is ideal. It is for this reason that I have been outspoken about the conflict between that dream and the goals inherent within multiculturalism and diversity. Both of these, all arguments to the contrary, rely heavily upon racial and cultural separatism. As long as we continue to encourage this subtle separatism, color-blindness will be nothing more than empty rhetoric.
All this to the side, I wish here to detail a number of facts that may be overlooked in the celebration of Reverend King. As with other heroes, we too often gloss over those things that do not fit into the nostalgic mold of them that we've created. This holds true of people from all races and cultures. President Jefferson was a slave holder; President Lincoln had what appears to be constitutional illiteracy; Theodore Roosevelt was quite open about his racism; the founder of Planned Parenthood believed in eugenics and saw abortion and contraception as a way to weed out blacks; and President Bush has done more to fund abortion with federal tax dollars through Title 10 and Title 19 than any other president before him. The list could go on, but I think my point has been made. Heroes, regardless of all the good they may have done, all too often have skeletons in their closet that their followers seek to keep hidden from public view.
With this in mind, let us take a look into the life of the beloved Reverend.
For starters, he was no friend to the free market. Granted, I share his concerns with anarcho-capitalism, but I certainly wouldn't identify my economic thought with the works of Karl Marx. He did this in a note to himself in 1951.
To make matters worse, he surrounded himself with advisers who were active in the Communist Party USA. This began with his time spent in the Highlander Folk School but went well into his public life. Names would include, but are not limited to, Hunter Pitts O'Dell, Stanley Levison, and Bayard Rustin. Interestingly enough, Rustin, who began his life of activism working with the Young Communist League, went on to be the chief organizer of the March on Washington in 1963.
We also have the sorrowful anti-American speech he delivered in 1967. Within this speech he went so far as to praise Ho Chi Mihn and even compared American soldiers to Nazi Storm Troopers. Regardless of what one may have thought of the war, this most certainly went over the line. But none dare call it treason.
Still, some may object that I am engaging in McCarthyism. So I think it only fair to examine a matter that, were it to happen at Olivet College, would result in serious penalties. It is the issue of plagiarism.
King had a bad habit of stealing from other people's work. It went so far as to infect both his written work and the various speeches he delivered throughout his career. For example, his "Contemporary Continental Theology" was largely stolen from a book written by a certain Walter Marshall Horton. His doctoral dissertation contains no less than fifty sentences taken from the PhD dissertation of Dr. Jack Boozer. According to the "Martin Luther King Papers," only 49% of the sentences in his dissertations section pertaining to Tillich were original. Even the New York Times published a story where Boston University admitted to their belief that there was "no question" that he cheated on his paper.
In short, King was guilty of actions that are punishable with severe penalties at Olivet College, as well as most respectable colleges and universities around the nation.
All of this to say that while it is good to recognize men and women for the good things they have done, we should never do so at the expense of presenting a well rounded version of who they really were and what they really did. Heroes are human, all too human, and their lives reflect this. It is my hope that in recognizing the Reverend, we will do so without shrouding those areas of his life that were not exemplary examples of self or social responsibility.
*Edit: In the first draft of this post I said that King's advisers were part of the Communist Party of America. Turns out that it was actually the Communist Party USA. Minor oversight, but one nonetheless. Thanks to the reader who pointed this out.*
I agree that a color-blind society is ideal. It is for this reason that I have been outspoken about the conflict between that dream and the goals inherent within multiculturalism and diversity. Both of these, all arguments to the contrary, rely heavily upon racial and cultural separatism. As long as we continue to encourage this subtle separatism, color-blindness will be nothing more than empty rhetoric.
All this to the side, I wish here to detail a number of facts that may be overlooked in the celebration of Reverend King. As with other heroes, we too often gloss over those things that do not fit into the nostalgic mold of them that we've created. This holds true of people from all races and cultures. President Jefferson was a slave holder; President Lincoln had what appears to be constitutional illiteracy; Theodore Roosevelt was quite open about his racism; the founder of Planned Parenthood believed in eugenics and saw abortion and contraception as a way to weed out blacks; and President Bush has done more to fund abortion with federal tax dollars through Title 10 and Title 19 than any other president before him. The list could go on, but I think my point has been made. Heroes, regardless of all the good they may have done, all too often have skeletons in their closet that their followers seek to keep hidden from public view.
With this in mind, let us take a look into the life of the beloved Reverend.
For starters, he was no friend to the free market. Granted, I share his concerns with anarcho-capitalism, but I certainly wouldn't identify my economic thought with the works of Karl Marx. He did this in a note to himself in 1951.
To make matters worse, he surrounded himself with advisers who were active in the Communist Party USA. This began with his time spent in the Highlander Folk School but went well into his public life. Names would include, but are not limited to, Hunter Pitts O'Dell, Stanley Levison, and Bayard Rustin. Interestingly enough, Rustin, who began his life of activism working with the Young Communist League, went on to be the chief organizer of the March on Washington in 1963.
We also have the sorrowful anti-American speech he delivered in 1967. Within this speech he went so far as to praise Ho Chi Mihn and even compared American soldiers to Nazi Storm Troopers. Regardless of what one may have thought of the war, this most certainly went over the line. But none dare call it treason.
Still, some may object that I am engaging in McCarthyism. So I think it only fair to examine a matter that, were it to happen at Olivet College, would result in serious penalties. It is the issue of plagiarism.
King had a bad habit of stealing from other people's work. It went so far as to infect both his written work and the various speeches he delivered throughout his career. For example, his "Contemporary Continental Theology" was largely stolen from a book written by a certain Walter Marshall Horton. His doctoral dissertation contains no less than fifty sentences taken from the PhD dissertation of Dr. Jack Boozer. According to the "Martin Luther King Papers," only 49% of the sentences in his dissertations section pertaining to Tillich were original. Even the New York Times published a story where Boston University admitted to their belief that there was "no question" that he cheated on his paper.
In short, King was guilty of actions that are punishable with severe penalties at Olivet College, as well as most respectable colleges and universities around the nation.
All of this to say that while it is good to recognize men and women for the good things they have done, we should never do so at the expense of presenting a well rounded version of who they really were and what they really did. Heroes are human, all too human, and their lives reflect this. It is my hope that in recognizing the Reverend, we will do so without shrouding those areas of his life that were not exemplary examples of self or social responsibility.
*Edit: In the first draft of this post I said that King's advisers were part of the Communist Party of America. Turns out that it was actually the Communist Party USA. Minor oversight, but one nonetheless. Thanks to the reader who pointed this out.*
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