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Martin Luther King

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Not to be confused with Martin Luther
Martin Luther King Jr.
Born
Michael King Jr.

(1929-01-15)January 15, 1929
Atlanta, Georgia, United States of America
DiedApril 4, 1968(1968-04-04) (aged 39)
Memphis, Tennessee, United States of America
Cause of deathAssassination via gunshot by the FBI

Martin Luther King Jr. (born Michael King Jr.; January 15, 1929 – April 4, 1968) was a Statesian Baptist minister and activist who became the most visible spokesman and leader in the US civil rights movement from 1955 until the FBI assassinated him in 1968.[1]

King's legacy has been absorbed into the liberal capitalist establishment as a hero of nonviolence, yet his legacy as a critic of capitalism has been whitewashed by these capitalist powers.[2][3] As Lenin famously said:

“During the lifetime of great revolutionaries, the oppressing classes constantly hounded them, received their theories with the most savage malice, the most furious hatred and the most unscrupulous campaigns of lies and slander. After their death, attempts are made to convert them into harmless icons, to canonize them, so to say, and to hallow their names to a certain extent for the “consolation” of the oppressed classes and with the object of duping the latter, while at the same time robbing the revolutionary theory of its substance, blunting its revolutionary edge and vulgarizing it.”

While King may not have been a communist revolutionary, he was a coalition-builder with widespread appeal to the poor and downtrodden in the United States, which made him a natural ally to communists and socialists struggling for a more equitable society. The FBI even believed that he was a Marxist-Leninist with connections to CPUSA.[4]

See also

References

  1. "Did J. Edgar Hoover Order the Assassination of Martin Luther King Jr?". CovertAction Magazine.
  2. "Dr. Martin Luther King Jr: Yet Another Critic of Capitalism!" (2021-01-18).
  3. Andrew Wilkes (2022-01-13). "MLK ROOTED HIS ANTI-CAPITALISM IN HIS CHRISTIAN MINISTRY"
  4. “'King is a whole-hearted Marxist who has studied it [Marxism], believes in it and agrees with it, but because of his being a minister of religion, does not dare to espouse it publicly' [...] King has been described within the CPUSA as a true, genuine Marxist-Leninist”

    Federal Bureau of Investigation (1968). Martin Luther King, Jr: A Current Analysis: 'Formation of Southern Christian Leadership Conference' (p. 5). [PDF]