No, MLK wouldn’t have supported your favorite candidate
Martin Luther King Jr. was an activist, not a mascot
By Asher Kohn
Dead men tell no tales, but that doesn’t stop politicians from trying to put words in their mouths. On Martin Luther King Jr. Day, every presidential candidate from Ted Cruz to Bernie Sanders has tried to force MLK’s legacy into their talking points.
Every presidential candidate is foolish for doing so. Not just because King’s mix of Christianity, black liberation, and international socialism is a strange brew for today’s politicians. Not just because the politics of 1968 don’t match up all that well with those of 2016. But also because Martin Luther King Jr. took pains not to lend his support to any presidential candidate. His politics were those of mass organization, not party affiliation.
When King first became a national figure, he saw his role as that of a reverend minister. As head of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, he felt it was not his place to put his support behind any prospective American Caesar. In 1960, King made an allusion to Romans 6:16, saying his role was to “look objectively at both parties and be the conscience of both — not the servant or master of either.”
King privately voted Democrat, but reminded his flock that this party was no sturdy ally to the civil rights movement. He wrote to a Michigan activist that “the Negro has been betrayed by both the Republican and the Democratic party” in 1958, when Dixiecrat Sen. James Eastland was the most powerful Democrat in the Senate. King threw his support behind Illinois Sen. Paul Douglas once, but Douglas was a crusader for civil rights and an enemy of redlining. He stood no chance in national elections.
As for the GOP, it should come as no surprise that MLK distanced himself from the party of big business and segregation. The only presidential campaign King made particular mention of was the odious one of Barry Goldwater. Referencing Goldwater’s 1964 nomination by the Republican Party in San Francisco, King warned that “all people of goodwill viewed with alarm and concern the frenzied wedding at the Cow Palace of the KKK with the radical right.” It took the Ku Klux Klan coming out in favor of a candidate before King declared he was against him.
Martin Luther King Jr.’s politics were those of the street. He believed in marches, boycotts, and chants — not simply crowning a ruler, even an elected one. Even after winning the Nobel Peace Prize three weeks before the 1964 presidential election, he didn’t feel the need nor desire to throw his weight behind Lyndon Johnson. King wanted to create a better United States, not win an election.
So while today is apparently the day to dust off a photograph of King smiling under his neatly clipped mustache, attached to a quote that seems semi-respectable … it is an election year. And two people, four people, 16 people can play at that game. As Trump and Ted Cruz and Hillary and Bernie all jostle to win, it is important to remember that Martin Luther King Jr. wanted to change the rules:
These are revolutionary times. All over the globe men are revolting against old systems of exploitation and oppression, and out of the wounds of a frail world, new systems of justice and equality are being born. The shirtless and barefoot people of the land are rising up as never before. The people who sat in darkness have seen a great light.
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