Twisted Titan
15th January 2011, 07:02 AM
Four Things you didn't know about 'Dr. Martin Luther' King:
1. His name wasn't Martin Luther. It was Michael. It was decided 'Martin Luther' had a more prominent ring to it, so he went by that. He never legally changed his name. To this day, he lived and died as Michael King.
2. While working on his dissertation for his doctoral degree at Boston University, he heavily plagiarized from another author who had done research on a subject similar to King's. An academic committee later found that over half of King's work was plagiarized, yet would not revoke his doctrine. King was dead by this time, and the committee ruled that revoking the title would serve no purpose. It was also discovered that King's famous "I Have A Dream" speech was also not his own. He stole it from a sermon by Archibald Carey, a popular black preacher in the 1950's.
3. King was under FBI surveillance for several years (until he died) due to his ties with communist organizations throughout the country. King accepted money from the organizations to fund his movements. In return, King had to appoint communist leaders to run certain districts of his SCLC (Southern Christian Leadership Conference), who then could project their communist ideas to larger audiences. A federal judge in the 60's ruled that the FBI files on King's links to communism to remain top-secret until 2027. Senator Jesse Helms appealed to the Supreme Court in 1983 to release the files, so the current bill in the Senate to create the Martin Luther King Federal Holiday could be abolished. He was denied.
4. One of King's closest friends, Rev. Ralph Abernathy, wrote a book in 1989 in which he talked about King's obsession with white prostitutes. King would often use church donations to have drunken sex parties, where he would hire two to three white prostitutes, occasionally beating them brutally. This has also been reported by the FBI agents who monitored King. King was married with four children.
Monday was "Martin Luther King" Day. A day when this country came to a screeching halt so we can have parades and memorials to honor this man, a man that most of the world views as a saint for his role in the civil rights movement.
No other public holiday in the United States honors a single individual. Of all the great leaders in our Nation's history - none of them have their own holiday. All of our great war heroes share Memorial Day. All of our great presidents share President's Day.Four Things you didn't know about 'Dr. Martin Luther' King:
1. His name wasn't Martin Luther. It was Michael. It was decided 'Martin Luther' had a more prominent ring to it, so he went by that. He never legally changed his name. To this day, he lived and died as Michael King.
2. While working on his dissertation for his doctoral degree at Boston University, he heavily plagiarized from another author who had done research on a subject similar to King's. An academic committee later found that over half of King's work was plagiarized, yet would not revoke his doctrine. King was dead by this time, and the committee ruled that revoking the title would serve no purpose. It was also discovered that King's famous "I Have A Dream" speech was also not his own. He stole it from a sermon by Archibald Carey, a popular black preacher in the 1950's.
3. King was under FBI surveillance for several years (until he died) due to his ties with communist organizations throughout the country. King accepted money from the organizations to fund his movements. In return, King had to appoint communist leaders to run certain districts of his SCLC (Southern Christian Leadership Conference), who then could project their communist ideas to larger audiences. A federal judge in the 60's ruled that the FBI files on King's links to communism to remain top-secret until 2027. Senator Jesse Helms appealed to the Supreme Court in 1983 to release the files, so the current bill in the Senate to create the Martin Luther King Federal Holiday could be abolished. He was denied.
4. One of King's closest friends, Rev. Ralph Abernathy, wrote a book in 1989 in which he talked about King's obsession with white prostitutes. King would often use church donations to have drunken sex parties, where he would hire two to three white prostitutes, occasionally beating them brutally. This has also been reported by the FBI agents who monitored King. King was married with four children.
Monday was "Martin Luther King" Day. A day when this country came to a screeching halt so we can have parades and memorials to honor this man, a man that most of the world views as a saint for his role in the civil rights movement.
No other public holiday in the United States honors a single individual. Of all the great leaders in our Nation's history - none of them have their own holiday. All of our great war heroes share Memorial Day. All of our great presidents share President's Day. Yet King - a man who was a phony, a cheater, a traitor, and a sexual degenerate - gets a day of his own.
http://urbanlegends.about.com/library/bl_martin_luther_king.htm
I must first comment on the apparent aim of the text, which has circulated via email since January 2003 and versions of which appear on numerous Websites, including some run by white supremacist groups with an obvious axe to grind. For all that it pretends to "set the record straight" on the life of civil rights leader Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., who was assassinated by a gunman in Memphis, Tennessee on April 4, 1968, it completely ignores the man's extraordinary achievements on behalf of freedom and equality in America, resting its case on a litany of tired misrepresentations instead. It's an assassination attempt on his character.
To address the specific allegations:
Claim #1: His name wasn't Martin Luther. It was Michael.
Partly true. He was christened Michael King at birth on January 13, 1929, but when he was 5 years old his father, a Baptist minister, legally changed both his own name and his son's to Martin Luther King.
Claim #2: While working on his dissertation for his doctoral degree at Boston University, he heavily plagiarized from another author who had done research on a subject similar to King's.
True. While gathering and collating King's writings for publication in the late 1980s, the editors of Stanford University's Martin Luther King, Jr. Papers Project discovered "extensive plagiaries" in his academic papers, including his 1955 doctoral dissertation. All these instances of plagiarism had escaped detection during King's lifetime, even by his dissertation supervisors at Boston University.
Claim #2a: It was also discovered that King's famous 'I Have A Dream' speech was also not his own.
Partly true. In both letter and spirit, the rousing conclusion of King's most famous speech borrows, without attribution, from one given eleven years earlier by family friend Archibald Carey at the 1952 Republican National Convention. However, the bulk of the "I Have a Dream" speech was King's own.
Claim #3: King was under FBI surveillance for several years (until he died) due to his ties with communist organizations throughout the country. King accepted money from the organizations to fund his movements.
False. While it's true that the FBI wiretapped Martin Luther King and other members of the SCLC during an ongoing investigation of alleged Communist ties, no evidence was ever found that King was a Communist sympathizer or that the SCLC received funding from Communist sources, according to King biographer David J. Garrow, who examined FBI documents released under FOIA.
Claim #4: One of King's closest friends, Rev. Ralph Abernathy, wrote a book in 1989 in which he talked about King's obsession with white prostitutes. King would often use church donations to have drunken sex parties, where he would hire two to three white prostitutes, occasionally beating them brutally.
False. Abernathy acknowledges in his autobiography that King had a "weakness for women" and indulged in extramarital affairs, but makes no mention whatsoever of "drunken sex parties" or prostitutes, and explicitly denies that King had dalliances with white women. Furthermore, Abernathy writes, far from being physically abusive, King was "always gracious and courteous to women."
1. His name wasn't Martin Luther. It was Michael. It was decided 'Martin Luther' had a more prominent ring to it, so he went by that. He never legally changed his name. To this day, he lived and died as Michael King.
2. While working on his dissertation for his doctoral degree at Boston University, he heavily plagiarized from another author who had done research on a subject similar to King's. An academic committee later found that over half of King's work was plagiarized, yet would not revoke his doctrine. King was dead by this time, and the committee ruled that revoking the title would serve no purpose. It was also discovered that King's famous "I Have A Dream" speech was also not his own. He stole it from a sermon by Archibald Carey, a popular black preacher in the 1950's.
3. King was under FBI surveillance for several years (until he died) due to his ties with communist organizations throughout the country. King accepted money from the organizations to fund his movements. In return, King had to appoint communist leaders to run certain districts of his SCLC (Southern Christian Leadership Conference), who then could project their communist ideas to larger audiences. A federal judge in the 60's ruled that the FBI files on King's links to communism to remain top-secret until 2027. Senator Jesse Helms appealed to the Supreme Court in 1983 to release the files, so the current bill in the Senate to create the Martin Luther King Federal Holiday could be abolished. He was denied.
4. One of King's closest friends, Rev. Ralph Abernathy, wrote a book in 1989 in which he talked about King's obsession with white prostitutes. King would often use church donations to have drunken sex parties, where he would hire two to three white prostitutes, occasionally beating them brutally. This has also been reported by the FBI agents who monitored King. King was married with four children.
Monday was "Martin Luther King" Day. A day when this country came to a screeching halt so we can have parades and memorials to honor this man, a man that most of the world views as a saint for his role in the civil rights movement.
No other public holiday in the United States honors a single individual. Of all the great leaders in our Nation's history - none of them have their own holiday. All of our great war heroes share Memorial Day. All of our great presidents share President's Day.Four Things you didn't know about 'Dr. Martin Luther' King:
1. His name wasn't Martin Luther. It was Michael. It was decided 'Martin Luther' had a more prominent ring to it, so he went by that. He never legally changed his name. To this day, he lived and died as Michael King.
2. While working on his dissertation for his doctoral degree at Boston University, he heavily plagiarized from another author who had done research on a subject similar to King's. An academic committee later found that over half of King's work was plagiarized, yet would not revoke his doctrine. King was dead by this time, and the committee ruled that revoking the title would serve no purpose. It was also discovered that King's famous "I Have A Dream" speech was also not his own. He stole it from a sermon by Archibald Carey, a popular black preacher in the 1950's.
3. King was under FBI surveillance for several years (until he died) due to his ties with communist organizations throughout the country. King accepted money from the organizations to fund his movements. In return, King had to appoint communist leaders to run certain districts of his SCLC (Southern Christian Leadership Conference), who then could project their communist ideas to larger audiences. A federal judge in the 60's ruled that the FBI files on King's links to communism to remain top-secret until 2027. Senator Jesse Helms appealed to the Supreme Court in 1983 to release the files, so the current bill in the Senate to create the Martin Luther King Federal Holiday could be abolished. He was denied.
4. One of King's closest friends, Rev. Ralph Abernathy, wrote a book in 1989 in which he talked about King's obsession with white prostitutes. King would often use church donations to have drunken sex parties, where he would hire two to three white prostitutes, occasionally beating them brutally. This has also been reported by the FBI agents who monitored King. King was married with four children.
Monday was "Martin Luther King" Day. A day when this country came to a screeching halt so we can have parades and memorials to honor this man, a man that most of the world views as a saint for his role in the civil rights movement.
No other public holiday in the United States honors a single individual. Of all the great leaders in our Nation's history - none of them have their own holiday. All of our great war heroes share Memorial Day. All of our great presidents share President's Day. Yet King - a man who was a phony, a cheater, a traitor, and a sexual degenerate - gets a day of his own.
http://urbanlegends.about.com/library/bl_martin_luther_king.htm
I must first comment on the apparent aim of the text, which has circulated via email since January 2003 and versions of which appear on numerous Websites, including some run by white supremacist groups with an obvious axe to grind. For all that it pretends to "set the record straight" on the life of civil rights leader Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., who was assassinated by a gunman in Memphis, Tennessee on April 4, 1968, it completely ignores the man's extraordinary achievements on behalf of freedom and equality in America, resting its case on a litany of tired misrepresentations instead. It's an assassination attempt on his character.
To address the specific allegations:
Claim #1: His name wasn't Martin Luther. It was Michael.
Partly true. He was christened Michael King at birth on January 13, 1929, but when he was 5 years old his father, a Baptist minister, legally changed both his own name and his son's to Martin Luther King.
Claim #2: While working on his dissertation for his doctoral degree at Boston University, he heavily plagiarized from another author who had done research on a subject similar to King's.
True. While gathering and collating King's writings for publication in the late 1980s, the editors of Stanford University's Martin Luther King, Jr. Papers Project discovered "extensive plagiaries" in his academic papers, including his 1955 doctoral dissertation. All these instances of plagiarism had escaped detection during King's lifetime, even by his dissertation supervisors at Boston University.
Claim #2a: It was also discovered that King's famous 'I Have A Dream' speech was also not his own.
Partly true. In both letter and spirit, the rousing conclusion of King's most famous speech borrows, without attribution, from one given eleven years earlier by family friend Archibald Carey at the 1952 Republican National Convention. However, the bulk of the "I Have a Dream" speech was King's own.
Claim #3: King was under FBI surveillance for several years (until he died) due to his ties with communist organizations throughout the country. King accepted money from the organizations to fund his movements.
False. While it's true that the FBI wiretapped Martin Luther King and other members of the SCLC during an ongoing investigation of alleged Communist ties, no evidence was ever found that King was a Communist sympathizer or that the SCLC received funding from Communist sources, according to King biographer David J. Garrow, who examined FBI documents released under FOIA.
Claim #4: One of King's closest friends, Rev. Ralph Abernathy, wrote a book in 1989 in which he talked about King's obsession with white prostitutes. King would often use church donations to have drunken sex parties, where he would hire two to three white prostitutes, occasionally beating them brutally.
False. Abernathy acknowledges in his autobiography that King had a "weakness for women" and indulged in extramarital affairs, but makes no mention whatsoever of "drunken sex parties" or prostitutes, and explicitly denies that King had dalliances with white women. Furthermore, Abernathy writes, far from being physically abusive, King was "always gracious and courteous to women."