Understanding Martin Luther King Jr.’s Politics

I am a man.

Those four words became synonymous with Black empowerment from the humble beginnings of the great civil rights movement. A movement that transcended politics to address fundamental human decency and ensure America lived up to the ideals outlined in the Constitution.

These days both the left and the right like to claim historically revered figures as their own. The phenomenon becomes increasingly common as time marches on and the character flaws of our leaders, known by their contemporaries, slowly fade away. It allows us to deify the secular.

This brings me to civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. Which party did he identify with? The answer is that his views didn't fit neatly in either camp, as the editors of the Encyclopedia Britannica note:

The official answer is neither. King talked very infrequently about his personal politics and was not formally affiliated with either political party. Nor did he explicitly endorse any candidate. In fact, he stated, “I don't think the Republican Party is a party full of the almighty God, nor is the Democratic Party. They both have weaknesses. And I'm not inextricably bound to either party.” What's more, the parties of King's time were different from the parties we know today; policies and platforms have changed drastically over time. According to King biographer David J. Garrow, King was fond of some Republican politicians, such as Richard Nixon, although it is almost certain that King voted for Democrats John F. Kennedy in 1960 and Lyndon Johnson in 1964. Among the few times he ventured into open partisanship was to denounce Republican presidential candidate Barry Goldwater, who, as a senator, had voted against the Civil Rights Act of 1964. King said in an interview, “I had no alternative but to urge every Negro and white person of goodwill to vote against Mr. Goldwater and to withdraw support from any Republican candidate that did not publicly disassociate himself from Senator Goldwater and his philosophy.” Although King supported Johnson's presidential campaign, he later spoke out about his dissatisfaction with Johnson's handling of the Vietnam War.

In the final years of Dr. King's life, his popularity decreased. King alienated a broad swath of white America as he became more outspoken against the still-popular Vietnam War.

King's closest allies feared his opposition to the war would cause irreparable harm to his relationship with President Johnson. By the mid-60s, the Johnson administration had staked its political future on the hope it could stop the proliferation of communism in Southeast Asia with an acceptable number of U.S. casualties.

Though history, once again, proved King right, his allies' fears were realized in the short term, as The Intercept chronicled in a 2018 article:

The New York Times editorial board lambasted King for linking the war in Vietnam to the struggles of civil rights and poverty alleviation in the United States, saying it was “too facile a connection” and that he was doing a “disservice” to both causes. It concluded that there “are no simple answers to the war in Vietnam or to racial injustice in this country.” The Washington Post editorial board said King had “diminished his usefulness to his cause, his country and his people.” A political cartoon in the Kansas City Star depicted the civil rights movement as a young black girl crying and begging for her drunk father King, who is consuming the contents of a bottle labeled “Anti-Vietnam.”

In all, 168 newspapers denounced him the next day. Johnson ended his formal relationship with King. “What is that goddamned n****r preacher doing to me?” Johnson reportedly remarked after the Riverside speech. “We gave him the Civil Rights Act of 1964, we gave him the Voting Rights Act of 1965, we gave him the war on poverty. What more does he want?”

The African-American establishment, fearful of Johnson's reaction, also distanced itself from King.

The NAACP under the leadership of Roy Wilkins refused to oppose the war and explicitly condemned the effort to link the peace and civil rights movements. Whitney Young, the leader of the National Urban League, warned that “Johnson needs a consensus. If we are not with him on Vietnam, then he is not going to be with us on civil rights.” Jackie Robinson, the celebrated African-American baseball player and civil rights advocate, wrote to Johnson two weeks after King's speech to distance himself from the civil rights leader: “While I am certain your faith has been shaken by demonstrations against the Viet Nam war, I hope the actions of any one individual does not make you feel as Vice President Humphrey does, that Dr. King's stand will hurt the civil rights movement. It would not be fair to the thousands of our Negro fighting men who are giving their lives because they believe, in most instances, that our Viet Nam stand is just.” Many donors to the Southern Christian Leadership Conference wrote to King announcing they were pulling their support.

All the while, King was subjected to years of FBI surveillance and harassment.

The popularity King lost after campaigning against the war in Vietnam, quickly returned after his assassination.

In 1999, a Gallup poll found that Martin Luther King Jr. was the second-most admired person among U.S. adults, second only to Mother Teresa.

Of course, Dr. King eloquently noted that “the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” Another quote of his that stands the test of time.

The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the positions of American Liberty News.

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