Martin Luther King Jr. Quotes
There are things I wanted to say renouncing communism in theory but they (the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee—another Civil Rights organization) would not go along. We wanted to say that it was an alien philosophy contrary to us, but they wouldn’t go along.
This quotation was obtained via an FBI wiretap on Dr. King’s telephone. What makes it historically important is that J. Edgar Hoover’s FBI steadfastly maintained that King and his movement were philosophically communist in their reports to the President and others. For example, a CIA memo of the time reported that “According to the FBI, Dr. King is regarded in Communist circles as a genuine Marxist-Leninist who is following the Marxist-Leninist Line.” However, Hoover had this and other evidence of King’s antipathy to communism but suppressed this leading the administration and others to believe that the Civil Rights Movement, to which Hoover was unalterably opposed, was Communist influenced. See {603873}, {603891}, {603872}, and {603889} showing Hoover’s view of King and Blacks.
Martin Luther King Jr., 1929-1968, Clergyman & Civil Rights Leader, Nobel Peace Laureate, Telephone call to Bayard Rustin. May 1965
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
Referring to Martin Luther King: Hoover tried to prejudice his staff against King when King had not committed any crimes other than being arrested for demonstrating in the South. Hoover ordered a wire tap on King and while no crime was discovered, they learned that King was engaged in some extra marital sexual liaisons. Hoover at the time was in a clandestine, secret, monogamous relationship with another male official of the FBI. Yet he was offended by King's promiscuity. Hoover honestly believed that segregation was the American way, and King's civil rights and equality advocacy in his view was an important part of the Communist program.
Describing Martin Luther King Jr.:
Martin Luther King Jr. was an African American Baptist minister and activist who became the most visible spokesperson and leader in the American civil rights movement from 1955 until his assassination in 1968. King advanced civil rights through nonviolence and civil disobedience, inspired by his Christian beliefs and the nonviolent activism of Mahatma Gandhi. He was the son of early civil rights activist Martin Luther King Sr.
