On the 100Th Anniversary of His Birth, Am I Obligated to Whitesplain Martin Luther King, Jr.?

Today, on the anniversary of his assassination, the FBI honors the life, work, & commitment of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. to justice. pic.twitter.com/WZInYKQx2g

— FBI (@FBI) April 4, 2017

You've done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?

No. I am not.

I am not a historian, and I am not Black, and these days, everyone from David Brooks to Ann Coulter seems determined to show people that he was really one of them.

I was 6 years old when he died, and lived in a place which (I think) still required an operator assisted call to reach the "Lower 48," so any recollections that I have are entirely from historical documents.

There is plenty of primary documentation of his life, his letters, his speeches, film and video, and I highly recommend that you check it out.

About the only thing that I can say with certainty from what I know of history history is that the FBI under J.Edgar Hoover was a profoundly pernicious organization that aggressively subverted the civil rights of its targets, and that there was never a proper reckoning for their behavior.

I'm inclined to believe that his legacy still permeates the Bureau, and current events would tend to bolster my opinion.