Give Credit To Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

With all of this talk about the role of Lydon B. Johnson's in pushing through the 64 Civil Rights legislation, we need to make sure that Dr. Martin Luther King and SCLC who lead mass demonstrations in Birmingham, Alabama, get credit when credit is due. They were the ones who lead non violent demonstrations in which unarmed black demonstrators and police armed with dogs and fire hoses beat black folks, which generated newspaper headlines throughout the world. It was King and SCLC that caused then President Kennedy to respond to the Birmingham protests by submitting broad civil rights legislation to Congress. The legislation was later passed and signed after his death, and with support from blacks across America through their elected representatives as the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Further more, No one appears to be talking about the role of Martin Luther King and for that matter Malcolm X. The fact of the matter is the one time that Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X worked behind the scenes to get the Civil Rights bill through Congress. They meet on March 8, 1964, and Malcolm X awaited King at a press conference on March 26, 1964 (below).

Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X at the United States Capitol on March 26, 1964. Both men had come to hear the Senate debate on the bill.

Get this, Most Democrats from the Southern states opposed the bill, including Senators Albert Gore Sr. (D-TN), J. William Fulbright (D-AR), and Robert Byrd (D-WV). I guess LBJ was not that great. Let's be clear folks, It was LBJ's FBI director J. Edgar Hoover's extensive efforts to undermine King's leadership and King's public criticism of U.S. intervention in the Vietnam War which led to strained relations with Lyndon Johnson's administration.

So Ms. (Bill)illary Clinton, stop the noise, give credit where credit is due.


- African American Political Pundit