(4.5 minutes) A very old interview with MLK:

What a juxtaposition. The worst president and a convicted felon will be sworn into office on a federal holiday set aside for the remembrance of a man recognized for the use of non-violence in his efforts to turn America to practice what it preaches.

These days many want to remember Martin Luther King almost as a quiet man who stood up against people in the racist South. This is the simplistic picture that has been created by the media over the decades. Such a simplistic picture has been used by politicians and media to alter the reality that was MLK.

In a recent article for The Washington Post author Johnathan Eig points out the difference between the real King and the one who is portrayed during the holiday remembrances.    Martin Luther King was very radical for his times. He fought not just the racism of the times but extended himself to all human discriminations: Here Eig discusses how King’s vision had become sanitized when the holiday began to be observed:

At the time of the first celebration in 1986, M. Carl Holman, president of the National Urban Coalition, expressed concern that politicians might use the holiday to disguise their opposition to King’s objectives, paying homage to the civil rights leader to provide cover for policies and beliefs they knew King would abhor. “Frankly,” Holman said, “it’s easier for a lot of people to honor Martin when he’s safely dead and deal with him as if he were just a visionary, and not a practical and very pragmatic protester against the status quo.”

It took less than a week for Holman’s prediction to come true, as President Ronald Reagan delivered a radio address denying allegations that his administration sought to do away with affirmative action and weaken civil rights enforcement. “We want a color-blind society,” Reagan said. “A society, that in the words of King, judges people not by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.”

That “content of their character” quote — taken from King’s famous “I Have a Dream” speech — has proved to be one of the most dangerous weapons in the effort to airbrush his legacy. It is used widely to suggest that King wished for a color-blind society — that he would have opposed affirmative action, for example — and that all he ever stood for was peace, harmony and coalition-building.

In 2017, when I interviewed entertainer and activist Harry Belafonte, he wondered aloud whether the holiday had done more harm than good to King’s legacy, making us forget the man’s radicalism, even erasing talk of racism.

King never wanted White Americans to get comfortable with discrimination. He never remotely suggested that his dream of a society free of racial discrimination should make us blind to the persistence of racism and inequality.

So as you remember Dr. King, remember that he was leading a movement that was disparaged by most Americans. Remember how he was hunted by the FBI and by citizens. His life was in danger daily, yet he stood up against the purveyors of racism and hate. The weapon he used was non-violence. He admirably gave his life trying to raise all people.

And the other man at center stage tomorrow is a man who has done nothing but sow hate and division all his life. He has spent his time on earth exploiting anybody and every body he comes in contact with. He breaks laws with impunity and has no qualms about undermining our system of government. He is the epitome of all that is bad in this country.

In a country that purports to honor Christian principals we shot the man who truly upheld those principals while we elect the one who treats such principals with total disdain.