LBJ, Civil Rights Hero:
A Classic Example of Nonviolent Direct Action Converting the
Leader of an Oppressor Group into an Advocate for Change
By James A. Frieden, May, 2015
A campaign of nonviolent direct action is an effort to create social or political change by: (1) mobilizing public opinion, (2) appealing to the conscience of the campaign’s adversaries, and (3) exerting economic, legal, or other pressure. The methods of nonviolent direct action include demonstrations, sit-ins, petitions, strikes, boycotts, advocacy in speeches, and peaceful public violation of selected laws — all designed to dramatize the injustice of the status quo and to apply pressure for reform. All legal levers of power can be used as part of a nonviolent direct action campaign, including court cases and electoral politics. Often, by design or happenstance, law enforcement will violently overreact to peaceful demonstrations, vigils, or sit-ins, providing publicity for the campaign and illustrating the need for change.
Nonviolent direct action, also known as "civil resistance," "non-violent resistance," or "civil disobedience," was developed by Mohandas Gandhi in South Africa and
India. It is the major political and advocacy innovation of the 20th century. Since
1947 nonviolent direct action has been responsible for the vast majority of revolutions that resulted in changes of government or, as in the case of the U.S., major social and political reform. Examples include: the Indian Independence movement culminating in 1947; the end of Apartheid in South Africa in 1984; the
People Power Revolution in the Philippines in 1986, and the fall of the Soviet Union
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in 1991. The two most important proponents of nonviolent direct action have been
Mahatma Gandhi and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
The role that changes of conscience and public pressure play in campaigns of nonviolent direct action can be seen in the conversion of Lyndon Baines Johnson
(LBJ) from a typical Southern politician who opposed civil rights laws to a man who both listened to his conscience and looked to his own political self-interest -- and took the cause of black civil rights to heart.
Before LBJ, only four 20th century political leaders of national stature had taken strong stands for black civil rights. Franklin Delano Roosevelt banned discrimination in federal employment through an Executive Order. Eleanor
Roosevelt advocated for better treatment of African Americans. President Harry S.
Truman ordered integration of the armed forces in 1948. President John F. Kennedy addressed the nation about the need for black civil rights on June 11, 1963 and proposed the law that eventually became the 1964 Civil Rights Act. However, the efforts of the Roosevelts and President Truman were limited, and President
Kennedy was murdered before he could get the civil rights law passed.
LBJ served in the Congress for 28 years, rising to the powerful position of Senate
Majority leader. It was not until 1957, after 25 years of opposing civil rights bills in
Congress, that LBJ began to support civil rights for black Americans. The Supreme
Court’s decision in Brown v. Board of Education and the Montgomery Bus Boycott had put the issue of black civil rights squarely before the nation. As Johnson began to seek the Presidency, he realized that he would have to change his position on civil rights. When Johnson became Vice-President, he took civil rights for African
Americans as his own cause.
While LBJ's espousal of civil rights was necessary for him to aspire to national office, it is also clear that he came to passionately believe in black civil rights and he became an effective force for change. LBJ's leadership was essential for passing the country's major civil rights laws: the 1964 Civil Rights Act prohibiting discrimination in employment and public accommodations, the 1965 Voting Rights
Act, and the 1968 law that prohibited discrimination in housing. The anti-poverty programs of Johnson's Great Society initiative assisted all poor Americans, a disproportionate number of whom were black. Johnson issued an Executive Order requiring government contractors to take affirmative action to benefit minorities.
Johnson also appointed the first African-American to head a federal government department and sit in the President's cabinet (Robert Weaver, HUD, 1966).
Perhaps LBJ's clearest statement of his belief in civil rights for African Americans came in his address to Congress on March 15, 1965, eight days after Selma's Bloody
Sunday.
At times history and fate meet at a single time in a single place to shape a turning point in man's unending search for freedom.
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So it was at Lexington and Concord. So it was a century ago at
Appomattox. So it was last week in Selma, Alabama.
There, long-suffering men and women peacefully protested the denial of their rights as Americans. Many were brutally assaulted. One good man, a man of God, was killed.
There is no cause for pride in what has happened in Selma.
There is no cause for self-satisfaction in the long denial of equal rights of millions of Americans. But there is cause for hope and for faith in our democracy in what is happening here tonight.
For the cries of pain and the hymns and protests of oppressed people have summoned into convocation [in this Joint Session of Congress] all the majesty of this great Government — the
Government of the greatest Nation on earth.
Our mission is at once the oldest and the most basic of this country: to right wrong, to do justice, to serve man. . . .
Rarely are we met with a challenge, not to our growth or abundance, our welfare or our security, but rather to the values and the purposes and the meaning of our beloved
Nation.
The issue of equal rights for American Negroes is such an issue.
And should we defeat every enemy, should we double our wealth and conquer the stars, and still be unequal to this issue, then we will have failed as a people and as a nation.
For with a country as with a person, "What is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?" . . .
This was the first nation in the history of the world to be founded with a purpose. The great phrases of that purpose still sound in every American heart, North and South: "All men are created equal." "Government by consent of the governed."
"Give me liberty or give me death." And those are not just clever words, and those are not just empty theories. In their name Americans have fought and died . . . Those words are promises to every citizen that he shall share in the dignity of man. This dignity cannot be found in a man's possessions. It cannot be found in his power or in his position. It really rests on his right to be treated as a man, equal in opportunity to all others. It says that he shall share in freedom. He shall choose
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his leaders, educate his children, provide for his family according to his ability and his merits as a human being.
To apply any other test, to deny a man his hopes because of his color or race or his religion or the place of his birth is . . . to do injustice . . . .
The real hero of this struggle is the American Negro. His actions and protests, his courage to risk safety, and even to risk his life, have awakened the conscience of this nation. His demonstrations have been designed to call attention to injustice, designed to provoke change; designed to stir reform.
He has been called upon to make good the promise of America.
The historical record shows acts of political courage by Johnson to support his procivil rights stand, including when as Vice-President, he integrated a segregated eating facility in St. Augustine, Florida during the height of racial tensions. Another example is Johnson’s speech before the Louisiana power elite at the Jung Hotel in
New Orleans just before the 1964 Presidential elections in which he told his audience that he would enforce to the fullest the recently passed Civil Rights law prohibiting segregation in public accommodations.
Historians and commentators speculate about why LBJ changed his position on Civil
Rights. Some point to his roots as the child of a poor family who had to work hard to become a success. They also point to his experience as a teacher in a poor Hispanic school district and to his belief that government should actively serve the people. As
LBJ said in his March 1965 speech to Congress, the protests awakened his conscience. Others assert that by 1957, in light of the protests mounted by the Civil
Rights Movement, the nation outside the South had already changed to support an end to segregation and that LBJ altered his position on black civil rights to improve his prospects for winning national office.
The actual reasons for LBJ's change of position on civil rights were probably a combination of background, philosophy of government, conscience, and political necessity. The point is that while Johnson’s background and his belief that government should act to help the people may have made him susceptible to the efforts of the Civil Rights Movement’s to arouse his conscience, only nonviolent direct action is designed to operate at such a personal level. In addition, to the extent that LBJ came to oppose segregation in order to expand his political base beyond the South, a fundamental strategy of any campaign of nonviolent direct action is to alter public opinion and therefore change political reality so that the leaders of a country find it in their self-interest to support the goals of the campaign.
Thus, LBJ’s change of position on civil rights is a classic example of how nonviolent direct action works on a powerful political leader.
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LBJ gives Dr. King one of the pens he used to sign the 1965 Voting Rights Act
LBJ and the 1965 Voting Rights Act
After years of community organizing, the voting rights campaign in Selma began in
1963. A major escalation was planned to begin in January of 1965. The Selma campaign was seen as a way to build public support throughout the North and West for a voting rights law and also as a way to "force Lyndon Johnson's hand on the federal voting statute." Garrow, Bearing the Cross, p. 380. On December 18, 1964, on
Dr. King's return home from Norway after receiving the Nobel Peace Prize,
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President Johnson invited King and his family to the White House. On that occasion
Dr. King and the President had a brief private conversation.
The President spoke about how beneficial his "war on poverty" effort would be for American blacks, and how they would have to play a leadership role in the program. King reminded Johnson that there were still serious civil rights problems in the South, and that the need for federal legislation to ensure blacks' voting rights was great.
"Martin, you're right about that. I'm going to do it eventually, but I can't get a voting rights bill through in this session of Congress," King later recalled Johnson telling him. It was less than six months since the Civil Rights Act [of 1964] had become law, the president pointed out, and he would need southern congressmen's votes for other
"Great Society" initiatives. He would lose these votes if he pressed for the voting rights measure. The time would come, Johnson said, but not in 1965." Garrow, Bearing the Cross, p. 368.
There was at least one other meeting at about the same time, this time with
Dr. King and other civil rights leaders in which the President reiterated his hesitation to go forward with a voting rights law at that time.
The conversations are combined and dramatized in the movie. So far as TWM's research shows, the only other scenes in which
Johnson appears that bear any relationship to the historical record are Johnson's interview with Governor Wallace and his address to Congress. The other scenes in which the President appears, either didn't happen at all or didn't happen as shown in
the film.
President Johnson was a complex man and often didn't tell others his true intentions. For example, before these conversations, on December 14, 1964, the President had instructed his attorney general to draft new voting rights legislation. It is clear, however, that within days after the conversations in which counseled delay, the President came to fully support the passage of a voting rights law in 1965. This is shown by LBJ's promise in his January 4,
1965 State of the Union address that he would have detailed voting rights proposals for Congress within six weeks.
In fact, by January 1965 just a few weeks after he had counseled delay, LBJ and Dr. King were working together to get a voting rights law passed in 1965.
This is shown by a telephone call between the President and Dr. King on
January 15, 1965. In that conversation, which was recorded, LBJ requested that Dr. King mobilize public support for the voting rights bill to help LBJ convince a reluctant Congress to pass the legislation. The President told Dr.
King that the voting rights act would be "the greatest achievement of my administration." This telephone call pre-dated the large protests in Selma, the
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first of which was held on January 18. It occurred before Dr. King's arrest while leading the Selma protests and almost two months before Bloody
Sunday, March 7, 1965. Between March 1965 and the next August, when he signed the bill into law, LBJ successfully shepherded the voting rights act through Congress.
King and Johnson were later to part ways as Johnson committed the U.S. to the
War in Vietnam, which Dr. King opposed, and as Dr. King sought a radical restructuring of economic power in the United States. However, on the voting rights act, they worked together.
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The FBI's Abuse of Power: Surveillance & Covert Action Against MLK & the
SCLC
In the U.S., it has never been a crime to belong to the CPUSA, to support it, or to cooperate with it. In addition, a U.S. citizen doesn't lose his civil rights by virtue of having been associated with a subversive organization in the past or by taking the
5th amendment when questioned about his political associations. What is criminal are actions that laws prohibit, such as spying for a foreign power, or providing aid and support for a foreign power, destruction of property, or conspiracies to perform those actions. In the modern context, it is not illegal to advocate an interpretation of the Koran supported by the so-called Islamic State. It is however, illegal to assist men and women to travel to Iraq or Syria to fight for ISIS.
J. Edgar Hoover made a career out of investigating subversives and radicals, and later, organized crime figures. In 1924 he was appointed head of the U.S. Justice
Department's Bureau of Investigation by President Calvin Coolidge. Hoover was periodically reappointed to his position as director of the Bureau, and its successor, the FBI, by the next eight U.S. Presidents. Hoover made the FBI into a professional and scientific crime-fighting organization. LBJ waived the mandatory retirement age for U.S. civil service employees and allowed Hoover to stay in power at the FBI until his death at age 72. By that time, Hoover had been in charge of the FBI for 37 years.
During this time, most Americans considered J. Edgar Hoover to be a hero.
There was, however, a dark side to the FBI and its long-time Director. Hoover kept secret files on political figures and used the threat of disclosure of information about their personal lives to intimidate Congress and the Executive Branch. Every President after Franklin Roosevelt (Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon) kept
Hoover in office because of the potential political costs to themselves or their allies of the information in Hoover's files.Hoover died in office in 1972, while Nixon was
President.
Another problem with Hoover's administration of the FBI was that he ordered the
Bureau to illegally wiretap and to take covert punitive actions against persons that he considered to be subversive or undesirable. The covert actions included burglaries, planting forged documents, leaking secret information from government files, and spreading false rumors. The FBI targeted the professional and personal lives of the people Hoover thought were threats to national security.
The Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution forbids government searches such as wiretaps or bugs without a warrant and the Fifth Amendment prohibits the government from taking punitive action against individuals without due process of law, i.e., without a conviction by a court or a finding by an administrative agency with procedural safeguards to protect the individual's rights. The efforts of the FBI to destroy the career and family life of Martin Luther King is the most egregious example of covert activity by the FBI directed at the leader of an important social reform movement.
The FBI's actions that related to Dr. King can be divided into three parts.
Part One — Reckless Claims that Dr. King and the Civil Rights Movement Were
Associated With Communists
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For several years before 1957, Stanley Levison, a New York attorney and businessman, was a key player in the finances of the Communist Party - USA
("CPUSA"). Levison first met Dr. King in 1956 and from 1957 until Dr. King's death in
1968, Mr. Levison was a close advisor to Dr. King, ghost writing chapters of Dr.
King's books, raising money for the SCLC and other civil rights organizations, and counseling Dr. King on strategy. In fact, Mr. Levison was Dr. King's closest white advisor.
The Levison/King relationship occurred during the Cold War, when the Soviet Union was an enemy of the U.S. and the CPUSA was closely tied to the Soviet Union. For example, from 1957 on the CPUSA had so few adherents that it could not support itself and until 1969 the Russian Communist party gave it millions of dollars. The financial support was intended to be secret; however, the FBI had thoroughly penetrated the CPUSA and the U.S. government knew exactly what was going on.
In addition, Dr. King unwittingly stoked the government's fears about his relationship with Levison. In 1963 and thereafter, Dr. King was repeatedly warned by high ranking U.S. officials who believed the FBI reports that Levison was a communist, including President John F. Kennedy, that if his association with Mr. Levison were made public, it would pose a danger to both the Civil Rights Movement and to
President Kennedy's civil rights bill. Dr. King at first refused to sever his relationship with Levison stating that he had asked Levison about his CPUSA connections and that Levison had satisfied him that he was not a CPUSA member. Dr. King stated that he didn't care about his supporters' past political affiliations, so long as they were committed to the Civil Rights Movement. Later, under mounting pressure, Dr.
King claimed to have disassociated himself from Levison. However, Dr. King kept a
"secret" channel open to Levison through an associate. Dr. King sought Levison's advice by asking the associate to find out what "our friend" had to say about issues facing Dr. King and the Movement. While Dr. King thought these communications with Levison were secret, he was wrong. The FBI was wiretapping both Levison and the associate.
Moreover, when Mr. Levison was called to testify before a Congressional committee in April, 1962 and asked about his CPUSA connections, he made an introductory statement denying that he had ever been a member of the CPUSA. He then took the
5th Amendment and would not answer any questions.
It turns out that Mr. Levison had ended his relationship with the CPUSA long before
1962. The years of government surveillance of Mr. Levison, revealed only that he acted as a loyal advisor to Dr. King. Neither the wiretaps nor other evidence from the
FBI's thorough penetration of the CPUSA revealed any evidence that Mr. Levison participated in CPUSA activities after 1957. To the contrary, the FBI knew that Mr.
Levison had split with the CPUSA and that its leaders didn't trust him. Thus, in its repeated claims in leaks and memos to government officials that Dr. King had connections with members of the CPUSA, Hoover and the FBI knew that they were playing fast and loose with the truth.
This is the story of two failures. One is the fact that a 50 year campaign by the
CPUSA to attract African-Americans to its cause, produced few results. The second was the inability of Hoover and the FBI to stop LBJ from working with Dr. King despite a barrage of memos alleging that Dr. King had ties to the CPUSA. LBJ and
Hoover had been friends for years. One can only assume that LBJ, who was a committed anti-Communist and Cold Warrior, knew that the FBI director hated Dr.
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King and that the FBI's claims about King's communist connections could not be trusted.
Part Two — The FBI's Covert Action Against Dr. King
The wiretaps of Dr. King and the bugging of his hotel rooms began in November,
1963. While the wiretaps failed to disclose any substantial evidence of CPUSA influence on Dr. King, they did provide evidence that Dr. King was engaging in extramarital sex with women. The FBI's attention then shifted to Dr. King's "moral weakness."
J. Edgar Hoover's personal dislike for Dr. King has been summarized by Ben
Christensen of CNN :
Hoover's contempt for King's private behavior is clear in the memos he kept in his personal files. His scrawl across the bottom of positive news stories about
King's success dripped with loathing.
On a story about King receiving the St. Francis peace medal from the Catholic
Church, he wrote "this is disgusting." On the story "King, Pope to Talk on Race," he scribbled "astounding." On a story about King's meeting with the pope, "I am amazed that the Pope gave an audience to such a degenerate." On a story about
King being the heavy favorite to win the Nobel Prize, he wrote "King could well qualify for the 'top alley cat' prize!"
One of the reasons why Dr. King was hated by Hoover was that Dr. King had dared to criticize FBI inaction in investigating murders of black and white civil rights activists. While the criticism was legitimate, Hoover disliked anyone who criticized him or his beloved Bureau.Eventually President Johnson made a personal appeal to
Hoover after the killing of the three civil rights workers, Schwerner, Goodman, and
Chaney, two of whom were white, and the FBI moved into action against the KKK and others who tried to use violence to resist the Civil Rights Movement.
With respect to Dr. King, the goal of the FBI was no less than, in the words of an FBI memo of December, 1963, to "neutralize King as an effective negro leader" and to hobble the Southern Christian Leadership Conference ("SCLC") that he led. A U.S.
Senate investigating committee later stated:
The FBI's effort to discredit Dr. King and to undermine the SCLC involved plans touching on virtually every aspect of Dr. King's life. The FBI scrutinized Dr.
King's tax returns, monitored his financial affairs, and even tried to establish that he had a secret foreign bank account. Religious leaders and institutions were contacted in an effort to undermine their support of him, and unfavorable material was "leaked" to the press. Bureau officials contacted members of
Congress, and special "off the record" testimony was prepared for the Director's use before the House Appropriations Committee. Efforts were made to turn
White House and Justice Department Officials against Dr. King by barraging them with unfavorable reports and, according to one witness, even offering to play for a White House official tape recordings that the Bureau considered embarrassing to King. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Case Study , CONTELPRO,
Docs, Church Committee, Final Report -- Book III, 23 April 1976.
The Senate Report also cited anonymous letters, planted newspaper articles, and disruption of SCLC fundraising activities.
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Both Hoover and LBJ were fascinated by the details of Dr. King's sexual encounters captured by bugs planted in Dr. King's hotel rooms, and there was an element of sexual voyeurism about their interest. Johnson would privately tell people,
"Goddammit, if you could only hear what that hypocritical preacher does sexually."
What is most remarkable is the stonewall-like refusal of almost everyone who was offered information about Dr. King's extramarital sexual activities to take the bait and use the information to destroy Dr. King's leadership. There were two likely reasons for this. First, in American politics for many decades, including the 1960's, there was an unstated understanding in the press and among many people in the political establishment that the personal and sexual lives of public officials were their own business and were not to be publicized. This changed in the 1980s when the
Presidential campaign of Senator Gary Hart was torpedoed by allegations that he was a womanizer. Since that time, the private lives of public officials have been fair game for public comment. In addition, it is likely that the people to whom the FBI tried to leak the story, almost all of whom were white, realized that Dr. King's value to
American society was so great that that his personal failings should be overlooked.
However, the persistent efforts of the FBI over four years to injure the reputation of
Dr. King and the movement with allegations of ties to communism and the details of
Dr. King's extramarital sexual activities did take a toll. It distracted and worried Dr.
King and his advisers and it kept some influential people from supporting the movement and made fundraising more difficult.
Perhaps the worst of the FBI covert activities against Dr. King was a letter written by the head of the FBI's intelligence operations, William C. Sullivan, in the Fall of 1964.
The letter claimed to be from an anonymous disappointed admirer of Dr. King. The letter contained deliberate misspellings and awkward constructions to make it appear authentic. It was accompanied by an FBI tape that included recordings of Dr. King having sexual intercourse with an unknown woman and sent to the SCLC headquarters in Atlanta. The letter stated that Dr. King would be exposed and implied that the only way out for him was suicide. People often sent the SCLC tapes of Dr. King's speeches and Dr. King's wife, Correta Scott King, liked to listen to them.
The package was duely forwarded, unopened, to Mrs. King. When Coretta King opened the package in January of 1965, she found the tape and the letter. Some excerpts from the letter are set out below:
Lend your sexually psychotic ear to the enclosure. . . . You will find on the record for all time your filthy, dirty, evil companions, male and females giving expression with you to your hidious [sic] abnormalities. . . . It is all there on the record, your sexual orgies. Listen to yourself you filthy, abnormal animal. . . .
You are on the record. You have been on the record – all your adulterous acts, your sexual orgies extending far into the past. This one is but a tiny sample. . . .
You will understand this.. . . King you are done. . . . There is but one way out for you. You better take it before your filthy, abnormal fraudulent self is bared to the nation.
The tapes contained excerpts of conversations that occurred in several different hotel rooms that Dr. King had occupied in different cities. When Dr. King and his advisors listened to the tapes, it was obvious that it could only have been created by the FBI.
In fact, the letter that accompanied the tape was written with the apparent knowledge and approval of J. Edgar Hoover.
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Contrary to what is described in the movie, there is no evidence that
President Johnson knew of or condoned any FBI covert actions and efforts to disrupt Dr. King's family life. There is some evidence that Walter
Jenkins, LBJ's closest aide, approved leaks to the press of information derogatory to Dr. King, but beyond that, these appear to have been illegal actions known only to the FBI, taken under orders from J. Edgar Hoover.
Part 3 — Providing President Johnson with Information about
the Political Plans of Dr. King and his Political Allies
The wiretaps of Dr. King, the SCLC, and their associates also revealed information about their political intentions and strategies. This information was forwarded to the
White House, along with information about Dr. King's extramarital sexual activities and the absence of any information of CPUSA penetration of the Civil Rights
Movement. In time, wiretaps were installed specifically to determine the political intention of Dr. King and his allies. This information was used by President Johnson against his political opponents such as the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party.
Evaluating the Leadership of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Martin Luther King started as a leader of an oppressed minority seeking equal treatment and justice. He grew to be a leader of the entire nation, bringing all
Americans closer to living the promise our national ideals. The United States, unlike other nations, was created based on a philosophy of how society should be structured: these include: "all men are created equal, . . . endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of
Happiness" representative government, freedom of speech, and separation of church and state. For centuries, America was tarnished by slavery and then by segregation.
While slavery was a cancer that had to be purged with the radical surgery of civil war
(see Lincoln's Second Inaugural), the mistreatment of racial and ethnic minorities was like a drug addiction that prevented all Americans, black and white, from fully living the American idea. Racial and certain ethnic minorities were denied the rights to liberty and the pursuit of happiness, and all too often they were killed. They were not permitted to function in society up to the level of their full potential and the nation was denied the full advantage of their abilities and efforts. As for the privileged white majority, the material benefits of oppressing others were more than offset with the psychic costs of living a lie: honoring the American idea while denying the full rights of citizenship to others based on the color of their skin and where they were born. (Those who were overtly racist felt that they were better than others by the accident of their skin color or place of birth. This relieved them from the responsibility of achieving self-esteem through action.)
It was Martin Luther King, Jr., who stepped in with his message of loving your oppressor while confronting him with the inconsistencies between his image of himself and his actions, saying, "You can do better," "We can do better.", Following the principles of nonviolent direct action developed by Mahatma Gandhi, Dr. King and the Civil Rights Movement transformed the debate from power struggles, anger, and violence, to a celebration of love, respect, and healing. He and his followers led the U.S. to a relatively peaceful way of improving race relations and bringing our practice more in line with the idea of America. Lyndon Baines Johnson who started as an opponent of civil rights for blacks only to become the politician who did more for
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black civil rights than any other in the century, is a clear example of how the magic of nonviolent direct action works on the powerful. For showing blacks and the nation a peaceful path out of an overtly racist society, all Americans owe Dr. King an inestimable debt.
In the years since Dr. King was assassinated, the public has learned that he was not perfect, that he committed serial adultury, and that he was, what might be called today, a sex-addict. The FBI wiretaps of MLK's extramarital sexual encounters are sealed until 2027. Apparently, when they are revealed they will provide further evidence of a personal flaw in Dr. King. And so, as President Johnson said, in this way he was a hypocrite. But which of us is not in some ways a hypocrite? Dr. King had a flaw, but which of us is without a flaw? Would America be better off if we had more MLKs? The answer is clear, of course we would. The sex is the least of it. The path of nonviolent direct action that allowed America to get more right with itself is what matters.
Note, that Dr. King feared exposure by the FBI and felt guilty that his sexual activities posed a danger to the Civil Rights Movement. Events which should have been high points in his life, such as receiving the Nobel Peace Prize, were spoiled for him because they occurred when his fear of exposure was at its height.
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