The Complicated Legacy of Martin Luther King Jr.

Yesterday was Martin Luther King Jr Day. As the day approached, I had been pondering what to write about Dr. King. The Civil Rights movement, the Poor People's Campaign, Dr. King's various sermons and speeches: all fit in my niche here. What a plethora of subject matter.

But maybe another day.

The topic in my home during the lead-up to MLK Day has been the Reverend's downfalls and personal demons. Most specifically his penchant for extramarital affairs. We have struggled with how to assess Dr. King, knowing he did great things, but that he also violated the trust and integrity of his marriage. Should we continue to revere him, or reject him?

The fact of his affairs has been distorted by both sides assessing Dr. King's legacy. His detractors love to bring it up, to make it the defining characteristic of him, to cast him as the arch liberal hypocrite. They question how a man of God could engage in such acts and still maintain the moral high ground he holds in memory. His defenders refuse to even acknowledge the existence of such trysts, preferring to cast Dr. King as some hyper-moral superman. With those who wish to roll back the gains he won still active and committed, its natural for those of us who supported his goals to wish to close ranks and deny his sins.

 Both approaches are unfair to his legacy.

Martin Luther King Jr. was the driving force behind the defining political movement of the 20th century, and perhaps American history. He lead a great drive for freedom and equality, the two principles this nation is built on. He had great personal courage, being imprisoned and spit on and beat and cursed all through his life. He made some of the greatest statements in American history, statements that will live longer than almost any others for the sheer weight of good and right in them.

"I have a dream."

"The arc of the moral universe is long, and bends towards justice."

"I have seen the promised land."

Yet, there is no doubt that he was a flawed man. His affairs violated the sacred bond with his wife, and cast a shadow on the morality at play in his personal life. They reveal a man who could bend the rules. Some ask, if he couldn't keep to the straight and narrow in his personal life, how do we know he didn't bend the rules in public? How do we know he didn't potentially coordinate with more violent segments of the Civil Rights movement, or pay supporters to join the march, or purposefully curry violence to cast his movement in a victim's light?

His shortcomings do tarnish the man, as they should. But they come as a shock to many. Because we have done to Dr. King what we do to all great heroes. We try too often to make the great people in history out to be perfect. We put them on a pedestal. We begin to believe they were infallible, that they were gods among us.

It is unfair to them and unfair to us. No one is immortal. No one is without faults.

Lest we forget, the great men of the Bible were flawed.

Noah liked the get drunk. Moses was a murderer. King David was an adulterer. Peter was a coward and denier of Christ. St. Paul spent a good portion of his adult live pursuing, torturing and killing Christians.

Lest we forget, the vast majority of our Founding Fathers supported the enslavement of one race, and the extermination of another. Our Presidents all had great faults.

Washington and Jefferson owned slaves. Andrew Jackson ordered the Trail of Tears. Abraham Lincoln believed the intermixing of the races was impossible, and all freed slaves should be sent back to Africa upon their liberation. Woodrow Wilson, our only President to hold a PhD, was an unrepentant racist. Roosevelt had an ego that sometimes got in the way of effective governing. Truman (my favorite president) ordered the dropping of two atomic bombs on civilian populations. Kennedy had numerous affairs.

But these things do not define any of these men. Nor should they. Because they were human beings, complicated and fallible and weak, but at the same time, intelligent and driven and strong. They shaped the world and should be remembered for doing so. Their sins were damaging, but their achievements were great.

The focus by some on the downfalls of Dr. King are even more damaging than those of our white heroes. The scorn heaped upon MLK perpetuates the belief that for a black man to go down as a great American, he must have lived a spotless life. This is not fair to MLK, or to the legacy of African Americans. We do not hold white Americans to the same standards. We deify the Founders and whitewash their sins, but hold sins against King and Malcolm and the other great leaders of the Civil Rights era.

The shortcomings and sins of our most hallowed figures should not define them. But they help us understand them. They show us that it is not immortals who do great deeds, but human beings, just like you and me. It is right of us to remember Dr. King as the great man he was, to appreciate the great deeds he achieved. It is also right of us to remember his weakness, his humanity, so that we may know that, despite our own faults, we can change the world as well.

It may be difficult to assess Dr. King this way. We may not be able to get past his shortcomings. It feeds the narrative of those who roll back the gains he achieved, who wish to obscure his fight not just for racial justice, but for economic and social justice. But we must remember that it is not personalities and individuals who define our drive for justice. It is the innate rightness of what we fight for. We are flawed, but our cause is not. Jesus told us, "He who is without sin, cast the first stone." All of us would do well to remember that.