As Americans get ready to honor his memory this coming Monday,
here are some fun facts you may not have known about Dr. King
1. His name wasn't Martin Luther. It was Michael. It was decided
Martin Luther had a more prominent ring to it, so he went by that. He
never legally changed his name. To this day, he lived and died as
Michael King.
2. While working on his dissertation for his doctoral degree at Boston
University, he heavily plagiarized from another author who had done
research on a subject similar to King's. As academic committee later
found that over half of King's work was plagiarized, yet would not
revoke his doctrine. King was dead by this time, and the committee
ruled that revoking the title would serve no purpose. It was also
discovered that King's famous I HAVE A DREAM speech was also not his
own. He stole it from a sermon by Archibald Carey, a popular black
preacher in the 1950's.
3. King was under FBI surveillance for several years (until he died)
due to his ties with communist organizations throughout the country.
King accepted money from the organizations to fund his movements. In
return, King had to appoint communist leaders to run certain districts
of his SCLC (Southern Christian Leadership Conference), who then could
project their communist ideas to larger audiences. A federal judge in
the 60's ruled that the FBI files on King links to communism to remain
top-secret until 2027. Senator Jesse Helms appealed to the Supreme
Court in 1983 to release the files, so the correct bill in the Senate
to create the Martin Luther King Federal Holiday could be abolished.
He was denied.
4. One of King's closest friends, Rev. Ralph Abernathy, wrote a book
in 1989 in which he talked about King's obsession with white
prostitutes. King would often use church donations to have drunken sex
parties, where he would hire two to three white prostitutes,
occasionally beating them brutally. This has also been reported by the
FBI agents who monitored King. King was married with four children.
--
Dr. Auric D. Hellman
adhel...@volcanomail.com