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should have at least 30% of the jobs in any particular company,
and jobs in all categories rather than only in menial areas.”
King was more than just talk in this regard. Working through his
Operation Breadbasket, King threatened boycotts of businesses
that did not hire blacks in proportion to their population.

King was even an early proponent of reparations. In his 1964
book, Why We Can't Wait, he wrote,

No amount of gold could provide an adequate compensation for the
exploitation and humiliation of the Negro in America down
through the centuries…Yet a price can be placed on unpaid wages.
The ancient common law has always provided a remedy for the
appropriation of a the labor of one human being by another. This
law should be made to apply for American Negroes. The payment
should be in the form of a massive program by the government of
special, compensatory measures which could be regarded as a
settlement in accordance with the accepted practice of common
law.

Predicting that critics would note that many whites were equally
disadvantaged, King claimed that his program, which he called
the "Bill of Rights for the Disadvantaged" would help poor
whites as well. This is because once the blacks received
reparations, the poor whites would realize that their real enemy
was rich whites.

Myth # 2: King was an American patriot, who tried to get
Americans to live up to their founding ideals.

In National Review, Roger Clegg wrote that "There may have been
a brief moment when there existed something of a national
consensus – a shared vision eloquently articulated in Martin
Luther King, Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech, with deep roots in
the American Creed, distilled in our national motto, E pluribus
unum. Most Americans still share it, but by no means all." Many
other conservatives have embraced this idea of an American Creed
that built upon Jefferson and Lincoln, and was then fulfilled by
King and libertarians like Clint Bolick and neocons like Bill
Bennett.

Despite his constant invocations of the Declaration of
Independence, King did not have much pride in America's
founding. He believed "our nation was born in genocide," and
claimed that the Declaration of Independence and Constitution
were meaningless for blacks because they were written by slave
owners.

Myth # 3: King was a Christian activist whose struggle for civil
rights is similar to the battles fought by the Christian Right
today.

Ralph Reed claims that King's "indispensable genius" provided
"the vision and leadership that renewed and made crystal clear
the vital connection between religion and politics." He proudly
admitted that the Christian Coalition "adopted many elements of
King's style and tactics." The pro-life group, Operation Rescue,
often compared their struggle against abortion to King's
struggle against segregation. In a speech entitled The
Conservative Virtues of Dr. Martin Luther King, Bill Bennet
described King, as "not primarily a social activist, he was
primarily a minister of the Christian faith, whose faith
informed and directed his political beliefs."

Both King's public stands and personal behavior makes the
comparison between King and the Religious Right questionable.

FBI surveillance showed that King had dozens of extramarital
affairs. Although many of the pertinent records are sealed,
several agents who watched observed him engage in many
questionable acts including buying prostitutes with SCLC money.
Ralph Abernathy, who King called "the best friend I have in the
world," substantiated many of these charges in his
autobiography, And the Walls Came Tumbling Down. It is true that
a man's private life is mostly his business. However, most
conservatives vehemently condemned Jesse Jackson when news of
his illegitimate son came out, and claimed he was unfit to be a
minister.

King also took stands that most in the Christian Right would
disagree with. When asked about the Supreme Court's decision to
ban school prayer, King responded,

I endorse it. I think it was correct. Contrary to what many have
said, it sought to outlaw neither prayer nor belief in god. In a
pluralistic society such as ours, who is to determine what
prayer shall be spoken and by whom? Legally, constitutionally or
otherwise, the state certainly has no such right.

While King died before the Roe vs. Wade decision, and, to the
best of my knowledge, made no comments on abortion, he was an
ardent supporter of Planned Parenthood. He even won their
Margaret Sanger Award in 1966 and had his wife give a speech
entitled Family Planning – A Special and Urgent Concern which he
wrote. In the speech, he did not compare the civil rights
movement to the struggle of Christian Conservatives, but he did
say "there is a striking kinship between our movement and
Margaret Sanger’s early efforts."

Myth # 4: King was an anti-communist.

In another article about Martin Luther King, Roger Clegg of
National Review applauds King for speaking out against the
"oppression of communism!" To gain the support of many liberal
whites, in the early years, King did make a few mild
denunciations of communism. He also claimed in a 1965 Playboy
that there "are as many Communists in this freedom movement as
there are Eskimos in Florida." This was a bald-faced lie. Though
King was never a Communist and was always critical of the Soviet
Union, he had knowingly surrounded himself with Communists. His
closest advisor Stanley Levison was a Communist, as was his
assistant Jack O'Dell. Robert and later John F. Kennedy
repeatedly warned him to stop associating himself with such
subversives, but he never did. He frequently spoke before
Communist front groups such as the National Lawyers Guild and
Lawyers for Democratic Action. King even attended seminars at
The Highlander Folk School, another Communist front, which
taught Communist tactics, which he later employed.

King's sympathy for communism may have contributed to his
opposition to the Vietnam War, which he characterized as a
racist, imperialistic, and unjust war. King claimed that America
"had committed more war crimes than any nation in the world."
While he acknowledged the NLF "may not be paragons of virtue,"
he never criticized them. However, he was rather harsh on Diem
and the South. He denied that the NLF was communist, and
believed that Ho Chi Minh should have been the legitimate ruler
of Vietnam. As a committed globalist, he believed that “our
loyalties must transcend our race, our tribe, our class, and our
nation. This means we must develop a world perspective.”

Many of King's conservative admirers have no problem calling
anyone who questions American foreign policy a "fifth
columnist." While I personally agree with King on some of his
stands on Vietnam, it is hypocritical for those who are still
trying to get Jane Fonda tried for sedition to applaud King.

Myth # 5: King supported the free market.

OK, you don't hear this too often, but it happens. For example,
Father Robert A. Sirico delivered a paper to the Acton Institute
entitled Civil Rights and Social Cooperation. In it, he wrote,

A freer economy would take us closer to the ideals of the
pioneers in this country’s civil rights movement. Martin Luther
King, Jr. recognized this when he wrote: "With the growth of
industry the folkways of white supremacy will gradually pass
away," and he predicted that such growth would "Increase the

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