Published on Alternet (http://www.alternet.org)
Home > Reality Check for Democrats: Would Martin Luther King Be Supporting
Bernie?
________________________________________
Reality Check for Democrats: Would Martin Luther King Be Supporting Bernie?
By Jeff Cohen [1] / AlterNet [2]
February 12, 2016
Corporate mainstream media have sanitized and distorted [3] the life and
teachings of Martin Luther King Jr., putting him in the category of a "civil
rights leader" who focused narrowly on racial discrimination; end of story.
Missing from the story is that Dr. King was also a tough-minded critic of
our capitalist economic structure [4], much like Bernie Sanders is today.
The reality is that King himself supported democratic socialism [5] - and
that civil rights activists and socialists have walked arm-in-arm for more
than a century.
The same news outlets that omit such facts keep telling us that the mass of
African American voters in South Carolina and elsewhere are diehard devotees
of Hillary (and Bill) Clinton - implying that blacks are somehow wary of
Bernie Sanders and his "democratic socialism."
Here are some key historical facts and quotes that get almost no attention
in mainstream media:
1909: Many socialists - both blacks and whites - were involved in forming
the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), our
country's oldest civil rights group. Among them was renowned black
intellectual W.E.B. Dubois.
1925: Prominent African American socialist A. Philip Randolph became the
first president of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, a union that
played a major role in activism for civil and economic rights (including the
1963 "March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom").
1952: In a fascinating letter [6] to Coretta Scott, the woman he would
marry a year later, Martin King wrote: "I imagine you already know that I am
much more socialistic in my economic theory than capitalistic. . . . Today
capitalism has out-lived its usefulness."
1965: King wrote an essay in Pageant magazine, "The Bravest Man I Ever Knew
[7]," extolling Norman Thomas as "America's foremost socialist" and
favorably quoting a black activist who said of Thomas: "He was for us before
any other white folks were."
1965: After passage of the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting
Rights Act in 1965, King became even more vocal abouteconomic rights [8]:
"What good is having the right to sit at a lunch counter if you can't afford
to buy a hamburger?"
1965-66: King supported President Lyndon Johnson's "War on Poverty" but
urged more - calling for a "gigantic Marshall Plan [9]" for our naton's poor
of all races.
1966: In remarks to staffers [10] at the Southern Christian Leadership
Conference (SCLC), King said:
"You can't talk about solving the economic problem of the Negro without
talking about billions of dollars. You can't talk about ending the slums
without first saying profit must be taken out of slums. You're really
tampering and getting on dangerous ground because you are messing with folk
then. You are messing with captains of industry. . . . It really means that
we are saying something is wrong with capitalism. There must be a better
distribution of wealth, and maybe America must move toward a democratic
socialism."
March 1967: King commented to SCLC's board [11] that "the evils of
capitalism are as real as the evils of militarism and evils of racism."
April 1967: In his speech denouncing the U.S. war in Vietnam [12] at New
York's Riverside Church, King extended his economic critique abroad,
complaining about "capitalists of the West investing huge sums of money in
Asia, Africa, and South America, only to take the profits out with no
concern for the social betterment of the countries."
May 1967: In a report to SCLC's staff [13], King said:
"We must recognize that we can't solve our problem now until there is a
radical redistribution of economic and political power . . . this means a
revolution of values and other things. We must see now that the evils of
racism, economic exploitation and militarism are all tied together . . . you
can't really get rid of one without getting rid of the others the whole
structure of American life must be changed."
August 1967: In his final speech to an SCLC [14] convention, King
declared:
"One day we must ask the question, 'Why are there forty million poor people
in America?' And when you begin to ask that question, you are raising a
question about the economic system, about a broader distribution of wealth.
When you ask that question, you begin to question the capitalistic economy.
And I'm simply saying that more and more, we've got to begin to ask
questions about the whole society. We are called upon to help the
discouraged beggars in life's marketplace. But one day we must come to see
that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring. It means that
questions must be raised. And you see, my friends, when you deal with this
you begin to ask the question, 'Who owns the oil?' You begin to ask the
question, 'Who owns the iron ore?' You begin to ask the question, 'Why is it
that people have to pay water bills in a world that's two-thirds water?'"
Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in 1968 as he and SCLC were
mobilizing a multiracial army of the poor to descend nonviolently on
Washington D.C. demanding a "Poor Peoples Bill of Rights." He told a New
York Times reporter [15] that "you could say we're involved in the class
struggle."
A year before he was murdered, King said the following to journalist David
Halberstam [16]: "For years I labored with the idea of reforming the
existing institutions of the South, a little change here, a little change
there. Now I feel quite differently. I think you've got to have a
reconstruction of the entire society, a revolution of values."
Unlike what Hillary Clinton professes today, Dr. King came to reject the
idea of slow, incremental change. He thought big. He proposed solutions
that could really solve social problems.
Unlike corporate-dominated U.S. media, King was not at all afraid of
democratic socialism. Other eminent African American leaders have been
unafraid. Perhaps it's historically fitting that former NAACP president Ben
Jealous has recently campaigned [17] for Bernie Sanders in South Carolina.
If mainstream journalists did more reporting on the candidates' actual
records, instead of crystal-ball gazing about the alleged hold that the
Clintons have over African American voters, news consumers would know about
the deplorable record of racially-biased incarceration and economic hardship
brought on by Clinton administration policies. (See Michelle Alexander's
"Why Hillary Clinton Doesn't Deserve the Black Vote [18].")
With income inequality even greater now than during Martin Luther King's
final years, is there much doubt that King would be supporting the
progressive domestic agenda of Bernie Sanders?
Before Bernie was making these kinds of big economic reform proposals, King
was making them - but mainstream media didn't want to hear them at the time
. . . or now.
Jeff Cohen [19] is director of the Park Center for Independent Media [20] at
Ithaca College, cofounder of the online activism group RootsAction.org [21]
- and founder of the media watch group FAIR [22], which defended Gary Webb
against the backlash.
Share on Facebook Share
Share on Twitter Tweet
Report typos and corrections to 'corrections@xxxxxxxxxxxx'. [23]
[24]
________________________________________
Source URL:
http://www.alternet.org/election-2016/reality-check-democrats-would-martin-l
uther-king-be-supporting-bernie
Links:
[1] http://www.alternet.org/authors/jeff-cohen
[2] http://alternet.org
[3]
http://fair.org/media-beat-column/the-martin-luther-king-you-dont-see-on-tv/
[4]
http://oberyhendricks.net/uncompromising-anti-capitalism-martin-luther-king-
jr/
[5]
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/peter-dreier/martin-luther-king-was-a-democrat
ic-socialist_b_9008990.html
[6]
http://kingencyclopedia.stanford.edu/encyclopedia/documentsentry/to_coretta_
scott/
[7]
http://warisacrime.org/content/bravest-man-i-ever-met-dr-martin-luther-king-
jr-1965
[8] http://www.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/bday/0115.html
[9]
https://books.google.com/books?id=6YwXAAAAQBAJ&pg=PA213&lpg=PA213&am
p;dq=gigantic+Marshall+Plan+martin+king&source=bl&ots=8rEO6dhYZR&
;sig=t4Snde8VjwWBDZNENcMPblNV5yM&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwit3b3fve7
KAhWGGD4KHYksCq0Q6AEIKjAC#v=onepage&q&f=false
[10]
https://books.google.com/books?id=F7ljj_iyQcwC&pg=PA87&lpg=PA87&
dq=You+can%27t+talk+about+solving+the+economic+problem+of+the+Negro+without+
talking+about+billions+of+dollars.+You+can%27t+talk+about+ending+the+slums+w
ithout+first+saying+profit+must+be+taken+out+of+slums.+You%27re+really+tampe
ring+and+getting+on+dangerous+ground+because+you+are+messing+with+folk+then.
+You+are+messing+with+captains+of+industry.+Now+this+means+that+we+are+tread
ing+in+difficult+water,+because+it+really+means+that+we+are+saying+that+some
thing+is+wrong+with+capitalism.+There+must+be+a+better+distribution+of+wealt
h+and+maybe+America+must+move+toward+a+democratic+socialism&source=bl&am
p;ots=agyd3f_j6B&sig=jGfEV2qC3FhqHFZFIsvWszAV2Xg&hl=en&sa=X&
ei=Z2v8UKn_Fcfi2QXzwoCgDQ&ved=0CDYQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q&f=false
[11]
https://books.google.com/books?id=HWqjxBEPPlEC&pg=PA209&lpg=PA209&am
p;dq=The+evils+of+capitalism+are+as+real+as+the+evils+of+militarism+and+evil
s+of+racism&source=bl&ots=HR3bZGU4EY&sig=GnvYDrnaLkIor5WkZQsTpY-
1akM&hl=en&sa=X&ei=jPxAVey9MsbdsATJ54CgAQ&v#v=onepage&q&
amp;f=false
[12] http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0115-13.htm
[13]
http://kairoscenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/King-quotes-2-page.pdf
[14]
http://www.plough.com/en/topics/justice/social-justice/where-do-we-go-from-h
ere
[15]
http://www.rawstory.com/2016/01/11-most-anti-capitalist-quotes-from-martin-l
uther-king-jr/
[16] http://billmoyers.com/2015/01/18/revolution-values/
[17] http://www.democracynow.org/2016/2/9/ex_naacp_head_ben_jealous_sanders
[18]
http://www.thenation.com/article/hillary-clinton-does-not-deserve-black-peop
les-votes/
[19] http://www.jeffcohen.org/
[20] http://www.ithaca.edu/rhp/independentmedia/
[21] http://www.rootsaction.org/
[22] http://fair.org/
[23] mailto:corrections@xxxxxxxxxxxx?Subject=Typo on Reality Check for
Democrats: Would Martin Luther King Be Supporting Bernie?
[24] http://www.alternet.org/
[25] http://www.alternet.org/%2Bnew_src%2B
Published on Alternet (http://www.alternet.org)
Home > Reality Check for Democrats: Would Martin Luther King Be Supporting
Bernie?
Reality Check for Democrats: Would Martin Luther King Be Supporting Bernie?
By Jeff Cohen [1] / AlterNet [2]
February 12, 2016
Corporate mainstream media have sanitized and distorted [3] the life and
teachings of Martin Luther King Jr., putting him in the category of a "civil
rights leader" who focused narrowly on racial discrimination; end of story.
Missing from the story is that Dr. King was also a tough-minded critic of
our capitalist economic structure [4], much like Bernie Sanders is today.
The reality is that King himself supported democratic socialism [5] - and
that civil rights activists and socialists have walked arm-in-arm for more
than a century.
The same news outlets that omit such facts keep telling us that the mass of
African American voters in South Carolina and elsewhere are diehard devotees
of Hillary (and Bill) Clinton - implying that blacks are somehow wary of
Bernie Sanders and his "democratic socialism."
Here are some key historical facts and quotes that get almost no attention
in mainstream media:
1909: Many socialists - both blacks and whites - were involved in forming
the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), our
country's oldest civil rights group. Among them was renowned black
intellectual W.E.B. Dubois.
1925: Prominent African American socialist A. Philip Randolph became the
first president of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, a union that
played a major role in activism for civil and economic rights (including the
1963 "March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom").
1952: In a fascinating letter [6] to Coretta Scott, the woman he would marry
a year later, Martin King wrote: "I imagine you already know that I am much
more socialistic in my economic theory than capitalistic. . . . Today
capitalism has out-lived its usefulness."
1965: King wrote an essay in Pageant magazine, "The Bravest Man I Ever Knew
[7]," extolling Norman Thomas as "America's foremost socialist" and
favorably quoting a black activist who said of Thomas: "He was for us before
any other white folks were."
1965: After passage of the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting
Rights Act in 1965, King became even more vocal abouteconomic rights [8]:
"What good is having the right to sit at a lunch counter if you can't afford
to buy a hamburger?"
1965-66: King supported President Lyndon Johnson's "War on Poverty" but
urged more - calling for a "gigantic Marshall Plan [9]" for our naton's poor
of all races.
1966: In remarks to staffers [10] at the Southern Christian Leadership
Conference (SCLC), King said:
"You can't talk about solving the economic problem of the Negro without
talking about billions of dollars. You can't talk about ending the slums
without first saying profit must be taken out of slums. You're really
tampering and getting on dangerous ground because you are messing with folk
then. You are messing with captains of industry. . . . It really means that
we are saying something is wrong with capitalism. There must be a better
distribution of wealth, and maybe America must move toward a democratic
socialism."
March 1967: King commented to SCLC's board [11] that "the evils of
capitalism are as real as the evils of militarism and evils of racism."
April 1967: In his speech denouncing the U.S. war in Vietnam [12] at New
York's Riverside Church, King extended his economic critique abroad,
complaining about "capitalists of the West investing huge sums of money in
Asia, Africa, and South America, only to take the profits out with no
concern for the social betterment of the countries."
May 1967: In a report to SCLC's staff [13], King said:
"We must recognize that we can't solve our problem now until there is a
radical redistribution of economic and political power . . . this means a
revolution of values and other things. We must see now that the evils of
racism, economic exploitation and militarism are all tied together . . . you
can't really get rid of one without getting rid of the others the whole
structure of American life must be changed."
August 1967: In his final speech to an SCLC [14] convention, King declared:
"One day we must ask the question, 'Why are there forty million poor people
in America?' And when you begin to ask that question, you are raising a
question about the economic system, about a broader distribution of wealth.
When you ask that question, you begin to question the capitalistic economy.
And I'm simply saying that more and more, we've got to begin to ask
questions about the whole society. We are called upon to help the
discouraged beggars in life's marketplace. But one day we must come to see
that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring. It means that
questions must be raised. And you see, my friends, when you deal with this
you begin to ask the question, 'Who owns the oil?' You begin to ask the
question, 'Who owns the iron ore?' You begin to ask the question, 'Why is it
that people have to pay water bills in a world that's two-thirds water?'"
Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in 1968 as he and SCLC were
mobilizing a multiracial army of the poor to descend nonviolently on
Washington D.C. demanding a "Poor Peoples Bill of Rights." He told a New
York Times reporter [15] that "you could say we're involved in the class
struggle."
A year before he was murdered, King said the following to journalist David
Halberstam [16]: "For years I labored with the idea of reforming the
existing institutions of the South, a little change here, a little change
there. Now I feel quite differently. I think you've got to have a
reconstruction of the entire society, a revolution of values."
Unlike what Hillary Clinton professes today, Dr. King came to reject the
idea of slow, incremental change. He thought big. He proposed solutions that
could really solve social problems.
Unlike corporate-dominated U.S. media, King was not at all afraid of
democratic socialism. Other eminent African American leaders have been
unafraid. Perhaps it's historically fitting that former NAACP president Ben
Jealous has recently campaigned [17] for Bernie Sanders in South Carolina.
If mainstream journalists did more reporting on the candidates' actual
records, instead of crystal-ball gazing about the alleged hold that the
Clintons have over African American voters, news consumers would know about
the deplorable record of racially-biased incarceration and economic hardship
brought on by Clinton administration policies. (See Michelle Alexander's
"Why Hillary Clinton Doesn't Deserve the Black Vote [18].")
With income inequality even greater now than during Martin Luther King's
final years, is there much doubt that King would be supporting the
progressive domestic agenda of Bernie Sanders?
Before Bernie was making these kinds of big economic reform proposals, King
was making them - but mainstream media didn't want to hear them at the time
. . . or now.
Jeff Cohen [19] is director of the Park Center for Independent Media [20] at
Ithaca College, cofounder of the online activism group RootsAction.org [21]
- and founder of the media watch group FAIR [22], which defended Gary Webb
against the backlash.
Error! Hyperlink reference not valid.
Error! Hyperlink reference not valid.
Report typos and corrections to 'corrections@xxxxxxxxxxxx'. [23]
Error! Hyperlink reference not valid.[24]
Source URL:
http://www.alternet.org/election-2016/reality-check-democrats-would-martin-l
uther-king-be-supporting-bernie
Links:
[1] http://www.alternet.org/authors/jeff-cohen
[2] http://alternet.org
[3]
http://fair.org/media-beat-column/the-martin-luther-king-you-dont-see-on-tv/
[4]
http://oberyhendricks.net/uncompromising-anti-capitalism-martin-luther-king-
jr/
[5]
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/peter-dreier/martin-luther-king-was-a-democrat
ic-socialist_b_9008990.html
[6]
http://kingencyclopedia.stanford.edu/encyclopedia/documentsentry/to_coretta_
scott/
[7]
http://warisacrime.org/content/bravest-man-i-ever-met-dr-martin-luther-king-
jr-1965
[8] http://www.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/bday/0115.html
[9]
https://books.google.com/books?id=6YwXAAAAQBAJ&pg=PA213&lpg=PA213&am
p;dq=gigantic+Marshall+Plan+martin+king&source=bl&ots=8rEO6dhYZR&
;sig=t4Snde8VjwWBDZNENcMPblNV5yM&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwit3b3fve7
KAhWGGD4KHYksCq0Q6AEIKjAC#v=onepage&q&f=false
[10]
https://books.google.com/books?id=F7ljj_iyQcwC&pg=PA87&lpg=PA87&
dq=You+can%27t+talk+about+solving+the+economic+problem+of+the+Negro+without+
talking+about+billions+of+dollars.+You+can%27t+talk+about+ending+the+slums+w
ithout+first+saying+profit+must+be+taken+out+of+slums.+You%27re+really+tampe
ring+and+getting+on+dangerous+ground+because+you+are+messing+with+folk+then.
+You+are+messing+with+captains+of+industry.+Now+this+means+that+we+are+tread
ing+in+difficult+water,+because+it+really+means+that+we+are+saying+that+some
thing+is+wrong+with+capitalism.+There+must+be+a+better+distribution+of+wealt
h+and+maybe+America+must+move+toward+a+democratic+socialism&source=bl&am
p;ots=agyd3f_j6B&sig=jGfEV2qC3FhqHFZFIsvWszAV2Xg&hl=en&sa=X&
ei=Z2v8UKn_Fcfi2QXzwoCgDQ&ved=0CDYQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q&f=false
[11]
https://books.google.com/books?id=HWqjxBEPPlEC&pg=PA209&lpg=PA209&am
p;dq=The+evils+of+capitalism+are+as+real+as+the+evils+of+militarism+and+evil
s+of+racism&source=bl&ots=HR3bZGU4EY&sig=GnvYDrnaLkIor5WkZQsTpY-
1akM&hl=en&sa=X&ei=jPxAVey9MsbdsATJ54CgAQ&v#v=onepage&q&
amp;f=false
[12] http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0115-13.htm
[13]
http://kairoscenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/King-quotes-2-page.pdf
[14]
http://www.plough.com/en/topics/justice/social-justice/where-do-we-go-from-h
ere
[15]
http://www.rawstory.com/2016/01/11-most-anti-capitalist-quotes-from-martin-l
uther-king-jr/
[16] http://billmoyers.com/2015/01/18/revolution-values/
[17] http://www.democracynow.org/2016/2/9/ex_naacp_head_ben_jealous_sanders
[18]
http://www.thenation.com/article/hillary-clinton-does-not-deserve-black-peop
les-votes/
[19] http://www.jeffcohen.org/
[20] http://www.ithaca.edu/rhp/independentmedia/
[21] http://www.rootsaction.org/
[22] http://fair.org/
[23] mailto:corrections@xxxxxxxxxxxx?Subject=Typo on Reality Check for
Democrats: Would Martin Luther King Be Supporting Bernie?
[24] http://www.alternet.org/
[25] http://www.alternet.org/%2Bnew_src%2B
