(Headline Wealth) Even as Americans have fiercely debated the rightful place of monuments and holidays to controversial figures in history — from Christopher Columbus to Robert E. Lee — they have yet to reckon with the troubling legacy of Martin Luther King Jr.
King is usually portrayed as a selfless, justice-seeking unifier. However, King’s biographer David J. Garrow exposed a darker side of the Civil Rights hero, including Communist ties and sexual abuse of women.
In “The Troubling Legacy of Martin Luther King,” published last year, Garrow wrote:
“The FBI began wiretapping King’s home and Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) office in Atlanta on November 8, 1963, pursuant to Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy’s written approval. For the previous 18 months, the FBI had insistently told Kennedy that King’s closest and most influential adviser, New York attorney Stanley D. Levison, was a “secret member” of the Communist Party USA (CPUSA). Kennedy’s aides, and finally his brother—the President of the United States—warned King to cease contact with Levison, but King’s promised compliance was dissembling…”
The Communist Levison “gave King $10,000 in cash in two years, the equivalent of $87,000 today, which was only discovered by an IRS probe.”
MLK himself advocated radical leftist politics, including “democratic socialism,” as pointed out by historian Tom Woods:
King apparently described himself to close associates as a Marxist: “Presented with evidence of King’s duplicity, plus FBI claims that King had told Levison that he was a Marxist, a reluctant Attorney General approved the FBI’s request to place King under direct surveillance too,” according to Garrow.
Perhaps most damaging to King’s legacy are the revelations about his predatory treatment of women. As Standpoint put it, “The wiretaps reveal him to be the Harvey Weinstein of the civil rights movement. They show that he was sexually voracious, frequented orgies and was present when his friend, pastor Dr Logan Kearse, raped a woman in a hotel room. The FBI wiretaps reveal that ‘King looked on, laughed and offered advice.'”
