This quote got me thinking. How will history judge Martin Luther King Jr.?
The Troubling Legacy of Martin Luther King, a recent essay published by widely respected historian David Garrow in Standpoint, a widely respected British magazine, sparked fierce debate among historians. Within the press, however, Garrow’s essay was met with a reaction somewhere between ambivalence and outright refutation.
Remember, this is David Garrow, author of King’s Pulitzer Prize-winning biography. This is an author of real merit.
According to Garrow, King engaged in orgies, solicited prostitutes, and "looked on and laughed" as a rape took place before his very eyes.
Again, this report comes from a senior advisor to Eyes on the Prize, an award-winning series documenting the Civil Rights movement. Garrow is very much a liberal's liberal. He’s certainly no friend of the right, and he’s certainly no enemy of King's. In fact, Garrow is, in many ways, a former idolator.
The allegations against Dr. King are as shocking as they are unfathomable. How could this man, an activist and orator like no other, act in such a monstrous manner? In King’s famous "I have a dream" speech, the self-professed pacifist eloquently expressed the hope that someday his children would be able to live in a nation "where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character." Well, Dr. King, your wish has been granted, because here we are, all these years later, judging the content of your character.