Wednesday, February 13, 2002
|
Wednesday, February 13, 2002 |
|
Give King his due, but discover all the facts Most responses to Letters to the Editor don't require follow-up, but the vitriolic, personal attacks on me by Messrs. Lewis and Scott deserve answering. I read and re-read my original letter and the printed versions, and nowhere did I state that Martin Luther King, Jr., "orchestrated his own assassination". (Perhaps a remedial reading program is in your future?) Surely, no one is so naive to believe that King would not have entered the political arena had he not been murdered. I do sincerely hope my "contentions" cause many to challenge what they are being taught about Martin Luther King, Jr. Review every city where he spoke and you will see violence and rioting, instigated (at their own admission) by advance agitators. I never stated that King started the riots; his "team" did. He followed as an innocent nonviolent. Even the liberal Lee Howell [former Citizen columnist] wrote that King's "most successful campaigns were those in which he could get his followers to goad their opponents into violent outbursts." And, says Howell, "In those places like Albany, where his protests were met with restraint and they were simply arrested, not beaten or water-hosed or turned into bait for the dogs, his protest movements were counted as failures." None of the facts I stated are "new found." They've been public knowledge from the early days of King's activity. That Mr. Lewis had never heard of them before simply states that he has not widely read all viewpoints concerning Dr. King. A respondent to my letter printed in the state newspaper (AJC), edited to make me appear racist, stated: "King's flawed past is well documented ...." And it is. What saddened me about this writer is that he accepted history's erasing of these flaws, without question or dissent. My earlier letter mentioned the "Dream" speech and Archibald Carey, who wrote the original, similar speech. Gerry Harbison, professor of chemistry, covered King's plagiarism in "The Daily Nebraskan" on Dec. 10, 1997. Dr. Harbinson accurately stated: "Plagiarism is a direct threat to our academic integrity. When a scholar plagiarizes, he defrauds other scholars of due credit for their work, and he contaminates scholarship by making it difficult or impossible to trace the evolution of ideas." Students are often expelled or flunked for turning in plagiarized papers. MLK's doctorate dissertation was plagiarized from Jack Boozer, as documented by Theodore Pappas: "... including errors in grammar and punctuation," without citing Boozer's work. The Washington Post (12/08/75) reported that King's mentor, financier, and confidante, New York attorney Stanley Levinson, was a member of the Communist Party. Other Communists close to King include Carl and Anne Braden, Abner Berry, Ubrey Williams, Hunter Pitts O'Dell (the latter whom King transferred and promoted to a post within the SCLC, once his Communist connections became public). I'm not accusing King of being a Communist, if one has a problem with comprehension. I do contend that he was sympathetic to communist idealogies, (as are most liberals), exhibited by his association with the above, as well as the leftist organizations mentioned in my earlier letter, all documented by photographs and articles in newspaper archives. Guilt by association, sorta like the Bush Administration and Enron. I agree that MLK is the "universally recognized leader of freedom for black Americans...." When former New Hampshire Governor Meldrim Thomson pleaded with President Reagan not to sign the bill creating a national holiday honoring King, President Reagan wrote, "... but here the perception of too many people is based on an image, not reality. Indeed, to them the perception is reality." He ultimately signed the bill. It amuses me when, almost weekly, someone chastises The Citizen for granting a writer rights guaranteed by the First Amendment. I'll bet Mr. Scott would find no fault with a letter praising King. He probably found no fault with Mr. Lewis's attack on me. Liberals and racists (of any color or creed) never let facts enter into their thinking process. They simply attack the messenger. I have supported the struggle for equality my entire life. I live what King preached, judging character, not skin color. As a child, I played with little black girls, my father had black friends, albeit shrouded in the restrictions of that time period. Most of the white people in our county also feared the Ku Klux Klan. But, my belief in equality does not cause me to turn a blind eye to truth. Children in today's state-run schools are not being taught the truth about Martin Luther King, or about the United States or other true American heroes. My earlier letter stated some of King's admirable traits and the impact he had on society. However, he has been created into a demigod, quite possibly something he, himself, may not have wanted. Black leaders who love(d) the United States and work for the betterment of all people, building, not burning, are more deserving of adulation than MLK. Architect Paul Williams (California, 1920s), engineer Elijah McCoy (1844), the man for whom the idiom "the real McCoy" was coined, Archibald Carey, the Reverend Jesse Lee Peterson, Larry Thompson, Clarence Thomas, Thomas Sowell, ad infinitum. Also, the man who did more to elevate the black race than anyone past or present, Booker T. Washington, spoke a truth that has endured and mushroomed to this date: "There is a class of colored people who make a business of keeping the troubles, the wrongs, and the hardships of the Negro race before the public. Some of those people do not want the Negro to lose his grievances, because they do not want to lose their jobs. There is a certain class of race-problem solvers who do not want the patient to get well." BTW, 1911. Mr. Scott must have missed Tom Daschle, Dick Gephart, Bill, Chelsea and Hillary Clinton in the "united" days following Sept. 11, when at every photo-op they blamed George Bush and the Republican tax cut for the terrorist attack. While the Democrats sang "God Bless America," with the next breath they resumed their divisive rhetoric. Most of the disagreement concerning the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. could be settled simply by immediately making his FBI files public, not in 2027 when they are scheduled to be opened. I would like to see open files on every public figure. They would then have the opportunity to correct (in a court of law, if necessary) any falsehoods contained therein. The United States will be a stronger nation if its foundation is based on truth. Its citizens will be united when the hatred, bitterness, and racism that causes one to attack another because of stated facts, is purged from their souls. Prove that anything I have written is wrong and I will change my mind. Until then, I have the right and the freedom to express an opinion (based on research and, it is hoped, not stolen from another writer without citing the source), and The Citizen has the right to print anything they choose. Would you really like to see a controlled press, Messrs. Scott and Lewis? Victoria Ann Wanzer Peachtree City
|
||