Bernie's Southern History

Michael (Martin Luther) King Defined:

A black community activist and admitted socialist, associated with many American communists.

To gain the support of liberal whites in the early years of his career, King made a few mild denunciations of communism but admired and emulated the communist use of labor union organization to acquire power. After training at facilities like the infamous Highlander Folk School in Tennessee, King frequently spoke before communist front groups such as the National Lawyers Guild and Lawyers for Democratic Action. He further attended seminars at Highlander which taught communist subversion tactics such as the mass public demonstrations which he later employed.

Though King was apparently not a member of the Communist Party USA (CPUSA) and had mildly criticized the Soviet Union, he had knowingly surrounded himself with communists. His closest advisor, Stanley Levison (King was photographed with Levison at Highlander in 1957), a known communist as well as his assistant Jack O’Dell. According to official records, Jack O’Dell was a member of the National Committee of the CPUSA in 1962 and had been listed as a communist party member as early as 1956. Robert Kennedy, and later Jack Kennedy repeatedly warned King to stop associating with communist subversives, though the advice was ignored.

King employed black communist Bayard Rustin from 1955 to 1960 as an associate, advisor and personal secretary. King and Rustin founded the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) one month after Rustin attended the 16th Convention of the CPUSA in February 1957. King served as president of the SCLC and vice-president was Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth, who was also the president of an identified communist front known as the Southern Conference Educational Fund.

Soon after returning from a Moscow visit in 1958, Rustin organized the first of King’s mass demonstrations in Washington, and the official organ of the CPUSA, The Worker," openly declared the march to be a communist project and endorsed it. Although he left King’s employ in 1961, Rustin was called upon by King to be second in command of the much larger march on Washington which took place on August 28, 1964.

Just before the King holiday was signed into law by Ronald Reagan, New Hampshire governor Meldrim Thompson wrote the President expressing grave concern about King’s morality and communist connections. Reagan responded that “I have the same reservations you have, but here the perception of too many people is based on an image, not reality.”

Sources:

The Negro and the Communist Party, Wilson Record, Atheneum, 1971

American Communism in Crisis, 1943-1957, Joseph R. Starobin, University of California Press, 1972

Lost Prophet, Bayard Rustin, John D’Emilio, University of Chicago Press, 2003