MLK and the churches behind him

[PetrChelcicky]

If I read personal attacks on MLK, I tend to cringe. The man was not important as a person, but as a product of his time and above all of the churches which formed him and build up his reputation. For example, he started with plagiarism at university, but his teachers did not hold him on account for it, as they should have done. So he came to see plagiarism as a normal way of behaviour.
My impression is that a lot of protestant churches were looking at all costs for the Great Black Leader who would lead his people into a nonviolent struggle for power (but would of course use state violence once he had a grip to power). And if they had found a candidate with potential, they understood that they had to make all sorts of excuses for him.
Also there has been made much noise about MLK's communist sympathies. Fact is that Elizabeth Dilling. when she in 1931 wrote a rather negative book about her experiences in the Soviet Union, got so much flak even in her Episcopal Church that she decided to look deeper into the matter - leading to her book "The Red Network", which is still unreplaced as a reference book about Christian fellow travellers. MLK stood in a clear tradition line.
Well, all this is bygone. What aches us now: all warnings had already been given, all warnings had been answered by promises, and all promises were not kept. To begin with the worst failure: Whites were promised a "colorblind" future. And a lot Whites indeed educated their children that way - only to learn that now, in first class, the teacher divides his pupils into Whites on one side and PofCs on the other side. This is such a sudden break with conventional LIBERAL habits that it simply could not go unprotested (even if Ken probably thinks that a teacher may do whatever he wants).
A more peculiar example: Whites had been promised explicitly that there would be no enforced shuffling white pupils into black schools. That promise was broken. In fact, if I read the memories of those children they are so bad that nearly nothng could have destroyed the black-white relations more.
Generally, scientists like James Buchanan had even then said that the goals of equality and liberty are in the end irreconcilable. Every church had time to ponder about that but it was simply ignored as an unwished complication.

The great sin of the churches was dishonesty. They should not have made promises at all - or if they made promises they were obliged to keep track of what happened after. But most of them did not. And that's why the United States are where they are.

[Ken]

If I read personal attacks on MLK, I tend to cringe. The man was not important as a person, but as a product of his time and above all of the churches which formed him and build up his reputation. For example, he started with plagiarism at university, but his teachers did not hold him on account for it, as they should have done. So he came to see plagiarism as a normal way of behaviour.
My impression is that a lot of protestant churches were looking at all costs for the Great Black Leader who would lead his people into a nonviolent struggle for power (but would of course use state violence once he had a grip to power). And if they had found a candidate with potential, they understood that they had to make all sorts of excuses for him.
Also there has been made much noise about MLK's communist sympathies. Fact is that Elizabeth Dilling. when she in 1931 wrote a rather negative book about her experiences in the Soviet Union, got so much flak even in her Episcopal Church that she decided to look deeper into the matter - leading to her book "The Red Network", which is still unreplaced as a reference book about Christian fellow travellers. MLK stood in a clear tradition line.
Well, all this is bygone. What aches us now: all warnings had already been given, all warnings had been answered by promises, and all promises were not kept. To begin with the worst failure: Whites were promised a "colorblind" future. And a lot Whites indeed educated their children that way - only to learn that now, in first class, the teacher divides his pupils into Whites on one side and PofCs on the other side. This is such a sudden break with conventional LIBERAL habits that it simply could not go unprotested (even if Ken probably thinks that a teacher may do whatever he wants).
A more peculiar example: Whites had been promised explicitly that there would be no enforced shuffling white pupils into black schools. That promise was broken. In fact, if I read the memories of those children they are so bad that nearly nothng could have destroyed the black-white relations more.
Generally, scientists like James Buchanan had even then said that the goals of equality and liberty are in the end irreconcilable. Every church had time to ponder about that but it was simply ignored as an unwished complication.

The great sin of the churches was dishonesty. They should not have made promises at all - or if they made promises they were obliged to keep track of what happened after. But most of them did not. And that's why the United States are where they are.

I'm not sure where you are going with this or why you are calling me out. No teacher divides their classes into white students on one side and black on the other. And your entire premise about schools is completely flawed. There are no white schools or black schools. There are just public schools. Brown v. Board of Education simply said that schools had to be colorblind. Read the case. There was no promise made to whites about anything. In addition, all of the desegregation mandates and busing came much later and were court-ordered remedies enforced against school districts that were REFUSING to desegregate their schools. In other words, school districts and states that were NOT treating school admissions as colorblind.

Read up about Arkansas. The governor of Arkansas called out the Arkansas National Guard and riled up big mobs in order to prevent a few black students from attending the formerly whites-only high school in their neighborhood. President Eisenhower had to invoke the Insurrection Act and call out the 101st Airborne Division in order to enforce colorblind schools and ensure their safety. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Rock_Nine

Do these people look like the are just seeking "colorblind" schools?




As for MLK? He was a prominent Baptist minister before the Civil Rights movement even started with the Rosa Parks and the bus boycotts. Why were black churches involved in the Civil Rights movement? Because they were the only organized Black institutions that Whites had allowed to exist in the Jim Crow south.

[temporal1]

MLK Jr

1. King's Birth Name Was Michael, Not Martin

King was born Michael King Jr. on January 15, 1929. In 1934, however, his father, a pastor at Atlanta’s Ebenezer Baptist Church, traveled to Germany and became inspired by the Protestant Reformation leader Martin Luther. As a result, King Sr. changed his own name as well as that of his five-year-old son.
https://www.history.com/news/10-things- ... er-king-jr

After learning about his early name change, and why, i usually begin with this when thinking of MLK Jr. There was an MLK, i would like to know more about him. His son overshadows! MLK’s 1934 visit to Germany had a profound impact on him!

He changed his own name AND his son’s to Martin Luther! No small thing for a man.

Clearly, MLK did not find Martin Luther’s German citizenship or whiteness any sort of stumbling block.
To me, this is an intriguing part of MLK Jr’s story that is largely ignored. (i believe i was in my 40’s when i first learned of it.)

[temporal1]

PetrC:
Well, all this is bygone. What aches us now:

the same old fallen nature has not disappeared.
the same old sins damage and destroy.

MLK Jr’s worst mistake was (i believe) inadvertantly leading his flock to seek after government (not God) for answers.

MLK Jr was fully human and a sinner.
i don’t believe he intended the destruction of faith and family and churches that followed his death, even in his name.

[Josh]

MLK was much like Trump: a serial adulterer whose religious supporters nonetheless saw him as a hero, and felt he could do no wrong.

[temporal1]

MLK [Jr] was much like Trump: a serial adulterer whose religious supporters nonetheless saw him as a hero, and felt he could do no wrong.

There’s a ton to compare+contrast there. i would begin with MLK Jr as pastor; DJT was a businessman, hedonist, that became a politician, who put away hedonism for elected political office. Comparing could be a stand-alone topic.

Because of this topic, i wondered, how MLK Jr (and, separately, his father) would respond to DJT? i was inconclusive.

History is kind, even idolizing of MLK Jr.
DJT? .. unknown.

Idol worship is wrong, a grave sin. i suppose dedicated unrelenting hate is a form of idol worship. MLK Jr had haters.
Both men were fully human and sinners. Both with big dreams. Both able to stir hopes and imaginations.

i’d like DJT to be treated fairly. i wouldn’t hope for idolization. idol worship should not be a goal.

[ohio jones]

MLK Jr

1. King's Birth Name Was Michael, Not Martin

King was born Michael King Jr. on January 15, 1929. In 1934, however, his father, a pastor at Atlanta’s Ebenezer Baptist Church, traveled to Germany and became inspired by the Protestant Reformation leader Martin Luther. As a result, King Sr. changed his own name as well as that of his five-year-old son.
https://www.history.com/news/10-things- ... er-king-jr

After learning about his early name change, and why, i usually begin with this when thinking of MLK Jr. There was an MLK, i would like to know more about him. His son overshadows! MLK’s 1934 visit to Germany had a profound impact on him!

He changed his own name AND his son’s to Martin Luther! No small thing for a man.

Clearly, MLK did not find Martin Luther’s German citizenship or whiteness any sort of stumbling block.
To me, this is an intriguing part of MLK Jr’s story that is largely ignored. (i believe i was in my 40’s when i first learned of it.)

If he had been inspired by Michael Sattler instead, the name change could have been avoided.

[temporal1]

If he had been inspired by Michael Sattler instead, the name change could have been avoided.

i’ve wondered similar, without your clever factor.
i believe it was entirely possible that could have happened. he was evidently open to learning.

i wonder if .. seeking after government for answers could have been avoided?!

[PetrChelcicky]

What interests me is above all: Can Christians be re-seduced to support Bolshevism a second time? And I think that yes, they can. Mostly by the promise of "social harmony" without all those nasty conflicts we have in Western countries. And most Christians will not look too deep into how thiat social harmony is made (namely by suppression).
I just found Phil Gorski's definition of a "democratic citizen" as someone who is "working with others to pursue the common good". That's just that trap, appealing to a (typically Christian) wish for social harmony.

[PetrChelcicky]

Ken, as for the present matter I relied on an affair often mentioned. The first informations seem to come from Tiktok and the first publication was, as far as I can find:
https://summit.news/2022/02/02/teacher- ... kin-color/
Now I was wrong about the age: fifth graders not first graders (slip of memory). And it started obviously rather more like sorting pupils, not grouping them, even if in the end it seems to have become grouping. I cannot find any dementi - the school (AM Kulp in Hatfiled, PA) seems to have been silent about it. That's all I can find about it. You may say that the teacher (if the report is correct) was unusually clumsy. But I insist that the basic idea is inevitable: As "racial/social justice" is DEFINED either by group proportionality or by group average, it makes no sense without grouping.

As for the historical matter (the promises) I am just looking where I found it.