Martin Luther King: A Great Man, but Not a Good Man

Can Martin Luther King’s civil rights achievements atone for his predations against women? Not if we apply the same standard to him as we do to other men.

One of my favorite Far Side comics depicts a sullen man being lectured by his wife at the dinner table. The caption reads, “And another thing . . . I want you to be more assertive! I’m tired of everyone calling you Alexander the Pretty-Good!”

As we all know from tenth-grade history, Alexander III of Macedon achieved historical immortality by conquering much of the civilized world in the 4th century B.C. But although we call him Alexander the Great for his achievements, and rightly so, we know very little of his private life. Did he act with integrity in his personal dealings? How did he treat women? That information is, alas, lost to history. And so, while we may call him a great man, we cannot therefore conclude that he was also a good man.

The difference between greatness and goodness became particularly relevant last week, when David Garrow’s bombshell article about Martin Luther King dropped. Of course, plenty of ink had already been spilled about King’s extramarital affairs. But now, newly published records from the FBI’s surveillance of suspected communists in the 1960s have revealed just how deep King’s sexual misconduct went. Chief among the surprises was evidence that one of King’s close associates forcibly raped a woman while King “looked on, laughed and offered advice.” Also cataloged was an account of King’s participation in a twelve-person orgy involving female parishioners. FBI notes indicate that when one of the women objected to a particular unnatural sex act, King was recorded as telling her that it would “help your soul.”

Information about these and other disturbing events has existed for decades in the form of tape recordings and transcripts that have been kept under seal in the National Archives pursuant to a 1977 court order. But portions of those materials were incidentally swept into the public record through the JFK Assassination Records Collection Act and were recently made available on the National Archives website. Garrow, a respected MLK scholar who won the Pulitzer Prize in 1987 for his work on King, did the yeoman’s work of scouring through hundreds of pages of PDFs to bring these details to light.

The full recordings and transcripts of these events are set to be released to the public in 2027 when the court order expires. And so, it bears considering whether King’s legacy can survive, given the new standards enshrined by the Me Too movement. While many previously untouchable pillars of industry and entertainment have been toppled by similar allegations of sexual misconduct in the last two years — Vox maintains a list that has now grown to 263 — King’s stature is in a league of its own. Enthroned within the pantheon after he was murdered, King’s name has become synonymous with the Civil Rights movement. I myself work in King County, Washington, named for the same man, whose likeness also appears on countless government materials. Is King simply too big to fail?

Some will, no doubt, accuse those who raise these questions of racism and may even fight to keep the recordings from being released. They may — quite reasonably, I think — fear that some will attempt to use King’s transgressions to discredit the broader Civil Rights movement. But one can simultaneously uphold the principles of the Civil Rights movement while questioning the actions of individual players within that movement. And if women’s rights — including the right of women to be free from sexual coercion and even rape by men in positions of power — are a matter of equality, then the Civil Rights movement itself compels us to take a frank look at King’s behavior. King may have advanced the principles of the Civil Rights movement more eloquently than any other figure, but he was not above them.

Others may argue that King’s misdeeds were outweighed by his contributions to society. And for that reason, even his worst transgressions should be excused and perhaps not even discussed. King may have had a similar notion in mind when, just before his death in 1968, he told his congregation, “God does not judge us by the separate incidents or the separate mistakes that we make, but by the total bent of our lives.”

The technical term for this way of thinking is “moral licensing,” the belief that a person’s good deeds in one sphere of life give him the right to compromise in another. Of course, we all do this to some extent, whether consciously or unconsciously. Complete a hard workout and justify the ice cream you eat that evening. Pride yourself on your impeccable green lifestyle but think nothing of your rudeness to the less environmentally enlightened. Spend a Saturday fixing up the house and coaching your kids’ baseball games only to reward yourself with a harmless sip of porn while your well-cared-for family sleeps. Consider that Harvey Weinstein, that sexual predator at the center of the Me Too movement, donated millions to charitable causes and even attended the Women’s March. Bill O’Reilly, once a darling of conservatives, railed against sexual libertinism and immorality from his cable news pulpit, all while allegedly sexually harassing female co-workers and physically abusing his wife.

At first glance, moral licensing may seem reasonable when we consider great men and women with checkered pasts. Tim Allen served years in prison for dealing cocaine, but now we entrust our children to him and don’t give a second thought to purchasing Buzz Lightyear pajamas. The 18th-century seafarer, John Newton, made a career of slave trading, but it’s his beautiful hymns that define his legacy. Certainly our virtuous acts must count for something in the balance of our lives, right?

But Allen and Newton differ from Weinstein and O’Reilly in one critical respect: they repented. They publicly acknowledged and turned away from their destructive enterprises before making their contributions to humanity. We admire Allen not because he continued to deal drugs while simply offsetting his crimes by entertaining our children. We admire him because he swore off his criminal past and put his talents to productive use. When “Amazing Grace” is sung at funerals — often at African American funerals — homage is made not to a slave trader but to a former slave trader turned abolitionist.

And while all of us, including those who turned from craven lifestyles, still regularly fail in one form or another, attention must be paid to the severity of the offenses. Raise three children to be happy, healthy, moral citizens, and we’ll forgive you the occasional harsh words and forgotten birthdays. But cross the sexual abuse line with your teenage daughter, and you’ve forfeited the right to be called a good father. Your decades of otherwise admirable service won’t save you your title.

We’d like to think of life as some kind of mathematical formula in which one’s goodness score in society is averaged over honorable acts and careless blunders. And perhaps that’s true in most cases. But some offenses are so grave as to be per se disqualifying — think rape, murder, embezzlement — no matter how exalted one’s achievements. It’s been said that it takes years to build a reputation but only a moment to destroy it, math be damned.

And so, if we hold to this logic, and if these revelations about King are true, then it seems clear that we can no longer call King a good man. That is not to take away from his great deeds or the noble causes he advanced. We should continue to follow the principles of equality so persuasively set forth in his speeches. But as for the man himself, his trial in the court of public opinion should be subject to the same standards as other leaders, past and present. If infidelity, sexual harassment, and complicity in rape are sufficient to dethrone other men as our moral betters, then King should be no exception. No person is too big to fail. In this, we are not judging King by the color of his skin but by the content of his character. And, sadly, we find that character sorely lacking.

But lest this seem like a targeted attack on King, we must acknowledge that we all face the same temptations. Each of us engages in moral licensing in some fashion. Do a good deed, and feel the urge well up inside to spend that surplus on a tasty selfish morsel. But obedience is better than sacrifice. A humble heart is greater than lofty public deeds. Many young people today aspire to the role of moral teacher to mankind by calling out injustice wherever they see it. They would do well to remember the hypocritical words of another fallen hero: If you want to make the world a better place, take a look at yourself and then make a change.

Nick Nugent is host of The Undefined Terms Podcast. For more on this topic, listen to “Ep. 11 — A Me Too reckoning for MLK, Jordan Peterson’s theology, and free Viagra.”

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