Was MLK a Communist?

Martin Luther King, Jr. was closely aligned to the Communist philosophy if not the Communist Party. King's very friendly biographer, David J. Garrow admitted, "King privately described himself as a Marxist." In his book, he quotes King as saying to his SCLC staff: "We have moved into a new era, which must be an era of revolution....The whole structure of American life must be changed....We are engaged in the class struggle." Of course, those words are right out the Communist handbook. Need I remind you that it was illegal to be a Communist in those days? The Communist Party was dedicated to overthrow our Constitution and way of life. It was a life and death struggle.

North Carolina Senator Jesse Helms thought, as I do, that the Communists looked for every opportunity to exploit weakness in our nation and used the racial issue to disrupt our government and way of life. That is why they promoted hatred between the races, and Martin Luther King and many white and black liberals permitted themselves to be used to reach that end. Racial war would at least destabilize our nation. King, while he preached non-violence, always seemed to promote violence. I do not pretend to know whether the Communists used King or King used the Communists. I say, "A pox on both their houses."

The Rev. Uriah J. Fields, King's secretary during the early stage of the Montgomery Bus Boycott, wrote in the March 1968 issue of American Challenger: "King helps to advance Communism. He is surrounded with communists. This is a major reason why I severed my relationship with him during the fifties. He is soft on Communism. I don't believe that he is a Communist or a Christian, for that matter." There is no doubt that King was not a Christian, and he was not a "card-carrying" Communist because Communists stopped carrying cards many years before that time. The question is not whether King belonged to the Communist Party, U.S.A. but was he a Communist?

In 1960, King resigned his church and moved to Atlanta to serve as co-pastor of his father's Ebenezer Baptist Church and to direct his Southern Christian Leadership Conference, an organization, founded in 1957 by King that was a front to foment disorder throughout the South. His vice-president was Fred Shuttlesworth and Rev. Andrew Young was "program director."

It is old news to informed conservatives, but there is a Labor Day, 1957 photo of King at the infamous Communist training school (Highlander Folk School) at Monteagle, Tennessee where King is sitting with Abner W. Berry, a member of the Communist Party's Central Committee; Aubrey Williams, board member of a Communist front group and member of various Communist-front organizations; and Myles Horton, founder along with Don West (Communist Party organizer for North Carolina) of Highlander Folk School. Another graduate of Highlander was Rev. Andrew Young, in more recent years Jimmy Carter's ambassador to the UN and mayor of Atlanta. (It is interesting that many of these "reverends" never pastored a church or even did any preaching! They occasionally give a lecture on social issues.)

While King may not have been an official member of the Communist Party, he was certainly supported by them because he supported their cause! Julia Brown was an undercover agent for the FBI in the Cleveland, Ohio area. She told a Congressional sub-committee that while she was a member of the Communist Party, "she knew Martin Luther King to be closely connected with the Communist Party." On the lecture circuit, she told audiences that King "was the hero of America's Communists. The cells that I was associated with in Cleveland were continually being asked to raise funds for Martin Luther King's activities." She also said, "Mr. King was one of the worst enemies my people ever had." Oh, by the way, Julia was black! How about a holiday for a real black hero?

In June of 1979 she testified at a Senate Judiciary Committee and concluded her statement to the Committee: "If this measure is passed honoring Martin Luther King, we may as well take down the stars and stripes that flies over this building and replace it with a red flag."

King often rejected the possibility that there were Communists in the civil rights movement; and that they influenced the movement. He lied. Michael Laski was chairman of the Communist Party U.S.A and he told a press conference on April 13, 1967: "King knows what's going on. He is allowing himself to be utilized by the Communist Party....King willingly enters into an alliance with the Communist Party....Mr. King receives support from organizations and individuals that are tied to the Communist Party. He knows what is happening, and so does James Bevel." Please note that the statement was made by the top Communist leader!

Furthermore, Gus Hall, a top Communist leader admitted that Communist leaders "consult with and advise top Negro leaders in their civil rights campaigns....Members of the Communist Party are very active in all the Negro organizations engaged in the civil rights struggle."

Carl Rowan, a liberal black newspaper columnist attended National Security Council meetings and was permitted to see confidential FBI files on King. Rowan said that King was known to be a communist since May of 1962, when King's name was "placed in Section A ...tabbed Communist" in the FBI's files. William Sullivan, Assistant Director of the FBI, concluded at the time, King was "the most dangerous Negro of the future in this nation from the standpoint of communism, the Negro, and national security." Sullivan was a liberal and supporter of King!

Karl Prussion, an FBI counterspy revealed in an affidavit placed into the Congressional Record that King was a member of over 60 Communist front organizations. He swore that King "had either been a member of, or wittingly supported and took support from over 60 communist fronts, individuals, and/or organizations, which give aid to or espouse communist causes." He added, "I further swear and attest to the fact that at each and every one of the aforementioned meetings, one Reverend Martin Luther King [Jr.] was always set forth as the individual to whom communists should look and rally around in the communist struggle on the many racial issues.

Ohio Congressman John Ashbrook told the House of Representatives "I believe he [King] has done more for the Communist Party than any other person of this decade." King was in bed with numerous Communists, even Party leaders, and it made Washington officials very nervous.