Martin Luther King: Moderate or Radical?
Happy Martin Luther King Day! I hope everyone is enjoying the long weekend.
Over the decades, King has became a larger-than-life civil rights hero. His call for equality rings as an aspirational creed in the American imagination. He was a leader gone too soon, assassinated in Memphis at the age of 39.
Each year, politicians on both sides come forward to praise the late reverend’s charisma and commitment to nonviolence.
His legacy has been co-opted by even the most conservative Republicans. In fact, do you know which president signed MLK Day into law? It was Ronald Reagan, a man who received 9% of the Black vote in his re-election.
Everyone loves to praise King’s image, but few are actually interested in embracing his agenda. His controversial opinions on modern capitalism and U.S. imperialism are deliberately ignored by people like Reagan.
So what was MLK’s vision for America? And if he were alive today, what might he say about the state of our country?
King’s life came at a pivotal moment in history. As America underwent sweeping cultural change, social unrest, and a military draft, the public was deeply divided. After nearly a century of oppressive Jim Crow laws…
