Stories about King's alleged infidelities and other personal flaws have been in public circulation ever since the 1960s, but Garrow has dug into some long-buried FBI files which, if genuine, not only document sordid personal behavior but also raise even deeper concerns.
One of the most disturbing incidents is summarized in the first paragraph:
Newly-released documents reveal the full extent of the FBI’s surveillance of the civil rights leader Dr Martin Luther King in the mid-1960s. They expose in graphic detail the FBI’s intense focus on King’s extensive extramarital sexual relationships with dozens of women, and also his presence in a Washington hotel room when a friend, a Baptist minister, allegedly raped one of his “parishioners”, while King “looked on, laughed and offered advice”. The FBI’s tape recording of that criminal assault still exists today, resting under court seal in a National Archives vault.Garrow's article contains more repugnant details about King's conduct with women and also reveals an FBI which behaved execrably in their surveillance of King, but what I'd like to focus on is the interesting test for the progressive left that his essay confronts them with.
Progressives have insisted that monuments to historical figures who were revered for their accomplishments should be torn down because these men were morally flawed in one way or another. There's a movement currently afoot, in fact, to expunge the name of Thomas Jefferson from everything that's been named for him.
Progressives were willing, too, on the basis of very meager testimony, to destroy the career and reputation of Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh over allegations that as an inebriated high school student, he momentarily laid on top of an unwilling girl at a party and groped her.
Progressives are also willing to condemn Donald Trump because of his boorish attitudes toward women, his infidelities, and his illicit association with the pornographic "actress" Stormy Daniels.
Moreover, progressives are so eager to destroy Mr. Trump's presidency and rid the nation of any vestige of his memory that they're willing to publicize a bogus and discredited dossier, ginned up by people in the employ of the Hillary Clinton presidential campaign, which alleges that Donald Trump conducted himself treasonously with the Russians and scandalously with prostitutes.
Now, though, our progressive friends must make a decision. Will they apply the same standard to Martin Luther King that they've invoked against other historically venerated Americans and to those they currently consider to be political enemies?
Although the allegations made by Mr. Garrow do indeed paint a loathsome picture of Mr. King, we should bear in mind that we're all sinners, none of us is perfect, all of our heroes are men and women with feet of clay. If Mr. King did the things the article alleges then we may justly feel deeply disappointed and repelled even as we acknowledge that great men are often as deeply flawed in some respects as they are great in others.
None of this should be construed as an attempt to excuse or minimize revolting behavior, but rather to stress that most men are like the Scottish preacher who when complimented by a female parishioner for his moral rectitude replied, "Madam, if you could see into my heart you would spit in my face."
Even so, for people like contemporary progressives who implicitly maintain that no one who has ever said or done shameful things should ever be promoted to high office or places of honor, and must be discredited and ruined if they have been, the course is clear.
Not only must they, if they're to be consistent, renew their calls for the resignation of officials like Virginia's Democratic governor Ralph Northam who once posed for a yearbook photo that seemed to glamorize the KKK and demean African Americans, they must also demand that every street and school named for Martin Luther King be renamed and his monument near the National Mall in Washington, D.C. be removed.
Either that or stop holding their political opponents to a standard they're unwilling to apply to those whom they admire.
Anything short of this will reveal that our progressive friends don't really care that Thomas Jefferson et al. owned slaves, nor that as an intoxicated teenager Brett Kavanaugh got overly aggressive with a woman or that Donald Trump did any of the nefarious things he's accused of.
It will reveal that progressives, or at least many of them, care little about principles, that they care chiefly about the acquisition of political power and will gladly employ whatever tactics help them attain it. If they decline to treat King the way they want Jefferson, Kavanaugh and Trump treated they're tacitly admitting that for them whatever works is right and that their only moral imperative is to win by any means necessary.
