Dr. King's Flaws Made Him Better Than Perfect --(
Tha Artstorian Reports....)
"The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy."
--Dr. King from his "Strength to Love" speech (1963).
Dr. King was a man of peace, but he did know how to use a gun...He also was known for womanizing, drinking alcoholic beverages, and chain smoking...Although Dr. King was a great original orator he was accused of plagiarism or stealing other people's literary ideas and passing them off as his own (who hasn't done that before)...Some might have even heard him use a cuss word or two or three or four...And I say to this like Miles Davis said with his trumpet on that famous song from his famous Kind of Blue album, "So What!!!"
Hitler was a vegetarian so does that make him a better person than Dr. King who loved eating catfish??? The reason I said all the above is to say that Dr. King was a human being like everybody else meaning that he was naturally flawed...But that's why his message is even more beautiful...Someone once said that the greater the hero the greater the flaws and Dr. King was no exception...This saying also has its basis in some of the great heroes and sheroes of the bible...It seems like everyone of significance who did extraordinary things were flawed ordinary human beings...For example before he became Paul the Disciple he was Saul the Mass Murderer...King David who overtook the gigantic Goliath could not overcome his gigantic addiction to lust and adultery and ended up killing a man for his wife...Noah, who built an arc to save civilization from a devastating flood, it could be argued wasn't believed by many because he was known as being an alcoholic meaning that he was getting 'flooded' every night with booze at his local pub...In spite of this these men were able to overcome their extraordinary shortcomings to achieve things that benefited the whole of humanity and are often cited more for their courage and conviction than for their personality flaws which in itself is great but could also have its consequences...Dr. King the son of a famous and well respected minister and whose original namesake, Martin Luther, also led a movement which transformed his time as well as those who came after, could in many ways be considered among the greatest of the individuals I mentioned...
In the mid-sixties Dr. King had a meeting with his powerful nemesis J. Edgar Hoover the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation...King wanted to complain about the over the top surveillance and abuses he felt that he and some of the key members of the American Civil Rights Movement were suffering from the American government in particular the F.B.I....Supposedly J. Edgar Hoover played for Dr. King an audio tape of him having sex with a woman that wasn't his wife in a hotel room and told him he would leaked this to the press if Dr.King didn't resign from his leadership duties to the American Civil Rights Movement...The FBI went so far as to send Dr.King a letter stating that Dr. King should "resign" a.k.a. kill himself because he is a fraud and is misleading Black Americans in particular and Americans in general...On both occasions he was warned that the tape will be leaked out to the mainstream press...Although a little taken aback Dr. King did not give in to these terrorist threats...It only made him stronger in his resolve to see his mission and message through...
Dr. King also had enemies among powerful Black folk as well...He was not well liked by many in the Black Baptist Minister Brotherhood because they felt that he was rocking the boat too much with all that civil rights nonsense and was making it unnecessarily hard on Black folks for no good reason...It could also be feared that Dr. King, a man known for liking expensive suits, but wasn't too fond of building personal wealth for himself or his family (he gave his prize money from his Nobel Peace Prize in 1964 to the movement and was finally convinced by friends and family into moving his family to a better house at that time valued $10,000 which was expensive) could affect their bottom line by taking people away from their churches thus redirecting their finances or money to the charismatic young minister or elsewhere...They even had Dr. King's father,Rev. Martin Luther King Sr., a famous minister and civil rights leader in his own right try to convince his son to give up leadership of the Montgomery Bus Boycott and move back to Atlanta to take over pulpit duties at Ebenezer Baptist Church...Dr. King refused his father and instead went on to lead a successful boycott campaign which catapulted his name into the nation's conscience...As the Black Baptist ministers became even more envious and enraged at his growing importance they tried to short circuit his influence in the Black Baptist Ministerial fraternity...When he saw he was getting the cold shoulder treatment from his peers, Dr.King, along with his close friends and associates (the under appreciated Ella Baker,Rev. Ralph Abernathy,Andrew Young, Dr. Joseph Lowery, Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth among others) started the Southern Christian Leadership Conference or SCLC as we know it today on Valentine's Day 1957 in New Orleans...
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