There is the Martin that America claims as one of its greatest heroes and the Martin that the nation now reveres as it does MLK. To do so, America had to forget its initial thoughts abut him during his lifetime, diluting and distilling his message to fit a more convenient narrative.
The FBI tried to tie Martin Luther King to communism, in one report claiming he was a “whole-hearted communist who followed a Marxist-Leninist line.” The FBI attempted to link every radical civil rights movement to communism, including the NAACP, Black Panthers, and Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). They infiltrated his organization, spread rumors, and planted fake news stories to discredit him. J. Edgar Hoover, then FBI Director, even sent a letter threatening to disclose his marital infidelities, hoping to induce him to commit suicide. King’s activities put him in constant danger from the police and local officials who maintained power where he led his protests to those who hated what he represented. He survived an attempt to kill him by a black woman at a book signing, and she was later proclaimed unstable. Despite the forces aligned against him, he still spoke out against injustice.
“Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter,” offered Martin.
Martin was a pacifist. This is true, but he also understood the sentiment behind the violence taking place in cities across America at the time. In some ways, he was presented as the reasonable alternative to Malcolm X and the Nation of Islam. In early 1965, after a speech in Selma, Malcolm denounced King (who was in jail at the time). Malcolm approached Coretta Scott King and let her know he supported Martin, and that his words might make it easier for Martin to accomplish his goals in a bad-cop/good-cop kind of way. This came after Malcolm left the Nation of Islam and after his Hajj to Mecca, during which he came to see many things differently. The possible combining of forces never came to be, as Malcolm was assassinated a few weeks later. Although Martin espoused nonviolence, he understood the rationale very much.
“ A riot is the language of the unheard,” he said.
If Martin were alive today, those who claim to have always loved him would have to find a way to silence him. He helped shine a light on that which some would keep hidden. He would rail against voter suppression, some of the current tactics looking slightly different than the same issue in his day. He would have looked with horror at the growing disparity between the haves and have-nots and led a change movement. He would have rejoiced when President Obama became a reality and recoiled at Trump, encouraging the masses to resist.
Said King: “He who passively accepts evil is as much involved in it as he who helps to perpetrate it. He who accepts evil without protesting against it is cooperating with it.”
They will tell you about his dream of people not being judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. About little boys and little girls walking hand in hand. They’d put him on a pedestal but ask you not to look too deeply. The Martin they want you to remember is not the whole of who he was. His message would be as relevant now as before. Yet those professing love for Martin and what he stood for would discredit and dismiss him because of his call for income equity, equal opportunity, and the end of unjust laws. Providing greater opportunities would require unwanted change. Remember Martin, love Martin, but know him for the radical he was, not the establishment figure he wished for.
“ Human progress is neither automatic nor inevitable… Every step toward the goal of justice requires sacrifice, suffering, and struggle," he said. "The tireless exertions and passionate concern of dedicated individuals.”
What America chooses to remember about Martin Luther King, Jr. has never been accidental. The safest version of him — the dream, the holiday, the quotes stripped of context — asks nothing of us. But the King who lived, the one hounded by the FBI, condemned by politicians, stabbed, jailed, and ultimately assassinated for demanding structural change, still speaks to the unfinished work we walk past every day. His insistence on confronting poverty, racism, militarism, and the quiet cruelty of indifference was not a footnote to his legacy; it was the point.
To honor him honestly is to resist the temptation to sand down the edges of his message. It is to recognize that the forces he fought have not disappeared — they have simply adapted. And it is to understand that his call was never for comfort but for courage. King warned that progress is neither inevitable nor guaranteed; it must be claimed by people willing to risk something for the sake of justice.
If we are to remember him at all, let it be for the radical he was, not the symbol he has been turned into. Let it be for the truths he told that still unsettle us. And let it be understood that the work he began did not end with him. It waits for us, still.