See also PETER BRIMELOW: Time To Rethink Martin Luther King Day, The January 2024 Edition

During Martin Luther King’s lifetime he was criticized by conservatives—including the late William F. Buckley—for things like his support of “civil disobedience”—moderate rioting and provocations, as at Selma Bridge, leading to immoderate riots which burned city blocks. Conservatives also objected to federalizing every lunch counter and motel in America, King’s more or less socialist economics, his support for Affirmative Action, the fact that many of his supporters (and close associates) were Communists, and that he supported the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong in the Vietnam War. ( It is theoretically possible to frame that as support for “peace”, but King’s position was that the Vietcong and ARVN were non-whites being bullied by the white-dominated US—as with most Vietnam-era “peace” activists, he didn’t give a damn about the former Republic of Vietnam.)

That was the conservative position in 1968, and would have been stronger if they’d known what the FBI knew about King’s private life (relentless adultery, violence against women, and involvement in rape). They also didn’t know about King’s history of plagiarism—including his doctoral dissertation, and to some extent the famous “I Have A Dream” speech.

But modern conservatives mostly don’t know about any of that—it would be racist to read the moderately dissident journals where such facts appear—and have settled on thinking of King as somehow a racial moderate based on one line in one speech: “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”

Of course when he said that, he meant that blacks shouldn’t be judged by whites on that basis—not that whites shouldn’t be judged by blacks.

Scott Greer has an article on his Highly Respected Substack that says Charlie Kirk of TPUSA—no longer anyone’s idea of a cuckservative—is going after the legacy of MLK, at least on the Right.

Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk plans to take on multicultural America’s most sacred idol: Martin Luther King Jr. The idea naturally inspired a wave of media condemnation of Kirk ahead of the MLK holiday. It’s rare for any public figure to criticize King. Kirk himself praised MLK as a “hero” in years past.

But the TPUSA chief is now “redpilled” on the civil rights activist and his legacy. This is a very positive development. It’s essential that more conservatives critique MLK. The diversity, equity, and inclusion framework is imposed on America in large part due to King’s efforts and our nation’s worship of him. From the civil rights regime to reparations, MLK stands for America’s anti-white mania.

Conservatives try to boil King down to just one sentence: “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.” To most of the American Right, this statement rebukes affirmative action and anti-white racism. Conservatives claim this proves that MLK was committed to colorblindness. That’s not true at all, as Charlie Kirk now knows. MLK shared the same beliefs as the average DEI commissar.

King’s chief contribution was to push for the passage of the Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act. Both were supposedly enacted to eradicate white supremacy from America. Instead, they’ve degraded the republic, curtailed liberty, and enlarged the power of the federal bureaucracy. As the work of Christopher Caldwell and Richard Hanania shows, the Civil Rights Act has been used to end freedom of association, curtail freedom of speech, mandate racial quotas in hiring and university admissions, usher in the tyranny of human resource departments, and made “diversity” the highest goal in American life. The Civil Right Act made the idea of a “colorblind” meritocracy impossible. Affirmative action and DEI are the spawn of it.

MLK Worship Gives Us DEI—Charlie Kirk is right to take on the civil rights idol, January 14, 2024

In contrast, Wired Magazine’s William Turton has a hit piece on Kirk—who actually defended us from the hatemongers of the SPLC on his podcast—in which “public policy scholar” Jonathan Rauch is quoted as saying “Kirk’s attempt to discredit civil rights law is an example of how ‘the fringe moves to the center at the speed of light’ in right-wing politics…”[How Charlie Kirk Plans to Discredit Martin Luther King Jr. and the Civil Rights Act, January 12, 2024]

SCOOP: How Charlie Kirk and Turning Point USA Plans to Discredit Martin Luther King Jr. and the Civil Rights Act https://t.co/yb2fxhUDOj

— William Turton (@WilliamTurton) January 12, 2024

Well, of course, opposition to the Civil Rights Act, etc. wasn’t always “fringe” in conservative circles. What this may really mean is that people are waking up from Cuckservatism.

If so, some of the credit has to go to us here at VDARE.com, who have been laboring in the vineyards (cottonfields?) for 20+ years.

Here, in honor of Martin Luther King Day, is what we’ve had to say about this in the past.

VDARE.com’s Martin Luther King Archive [69 Items]

• December 13, 2023—BU Alumni Magazine’s Ignoring MLK’s Plagiarism Now Relevant Given Accusations Against Harvard President Gay by John Smith
• August 25, 2023—This Week In Conservative MLK Worship: D’Souza Thinks Trump Belongs With Hall Of Communist Heroes by Eugene Gant
• March 27, 2023—Mid-Level Violence, MLK, And Selma Bridge by James Fulford
• January 20, 2023—JOHN DERBYSHIRE: Sixty Years After Martin Luther King, America’s Race Problem Is Metastasizing by John Derbyshire
• January 18, 2023—S. “Civil Rights Revolution” Spreading Anti-Whiteism Across The Anglosphere by Pedro de Alvarado
• January 17, 2023—What Would MLK Day Be Without A Black On Black Mass Shooting? Eight Black People Shot (By Black Shooter) At MLK Car Show by Paul Kersey
• January 16, 2023—JOHN DERBYSHIRE: On Martin Luther King Day, Remember The Brunswick Three! by John Derbyshire
• January 10, 2023—Rethinking Martin Luther King Day in 2023—With VDARE.com’s Own Never-Sealed MLK Archive [61 Items] by James Fulford
• January 21, 2022—Black On Black Mass Shooting At MLK Day Party On Martin Luther King Jr. Drive In San Antonio Ends With 1 Dead, 4 Wounded by Paul Kersey
• January 21, 2022—Black Writer Begs Blacks To Stop Killing Other Blacks In Honor Of MLK’s Memory by Paul Kersey
• January 17, 2022—King Holyday Rooted In Lies About What He Believed—And What Jefferson And America’s Founders Believed by Nicholas Stix
• January 17, 2022—Time To Rethink Martin Luther King Day? Now More Than Ever! | VDARE Video Bulletin
• January 16, 2022—com’s Martin Luther King Archive: 48 Items!
• January 15, 2022—2022: Time To Rethink Martin Luther King Day? Now More Than Ever! by Peter Brimelow
• January 15, 2022—Integration Has Failed. Now What? by Eugene Gant
• January 19, 2021—Theodore Pappas On Martin Luther King’s Grad School Affirmative Action by James Fulford
• January 19, 2021—MLK Day Special: Martin Luther King’s 1951 GRE Scores: Verbal 350, Quantitative 270 by Steve Sailer
• January 17, 2021—Time To Rethink Martin Luther King Day? The 2021 Edition by Peter Brimelow
• November 19, 2020—A Talk Radio Listener Says Trump Should Order The Sealed Martin Luther King Records Released—Along With Other Deep State Files
• June 13, 2020—John Derbyshire: I Have A Dream—That This Is The Darkness Before The Race-Realist Dawn
• January 21, 2020—King And Gandhi—Two Of A Kind (Not In A Good Way) by Eugene Gant
• January 20, 2020—No, Martin Luther King Jr. Was NOT A Republican (Or A Conservative) by Eugene Gant
• January 20, 2020—Patrick J. Buchanan: Is Mass Civil Disobedience Our Future?
• January 20, 2020—On Martin Luther King’s Non-Conservatism: The Quota King by James Fulford
• January 19, 2020—Time, Once Again, To Rethink Martin Luther King Day–The 2020 Edition by Peter Brimelow
• June 5, 2019—Ann Coulter: The Whole MLK Folk Tale, And Nothing But
• June 4, 2019—A Tennessee Reader Says Historian David Garrow Concurs With VDARE.com’s Peter Brimelow On MLK’s 2027 Problem
• May 31, 2019—Garrow: “The Troubling Legacy of Martin Luther King“ by Steve Sailer
• May 29, 2019—Ann Coulter: My (Thurgood) Marshall Plan For Replacing MLK Day
• May 27, 2019—And Then They Came for MLK… by Steve Sailer
• January 20, 2019—Time, Once Again, To Rethink Martin Luther King Day—The 2019 Edition by Peter Brimelow
• April 6, 2018—It’s The 50th Anniversary Of The Martin Luther King Riots—And Will Be For About A Week by James Fulford
• January 16, 2018—On Martin Luther King Day: Will #MeToo Do To The MLK Myth What Plagiarism, Adultery, Communism, Haven’t—Yet? by Clayton Bishop
• January 16, 2017—Trump And The King Family: MLK III Met With Him, Alveda Voted For Him, And Coretta Scott King Supported Employer Sanctions by James Fulford
• January 15, 2017—“Time To Rethink Martin Luther King Day”–The 2017 Edition by Peter Brimelow
• November 5, 2017—The Dam Breaks On MLK’s True Character by Patrick Cleburne
• October 23, 2017—A Talk Radio Listener Wants Trump To Release Sealed MLK Records As Well As JFK Archives
• October 19, 2016—Kathy Shaidle in TAKIMAG: “Martin Luther King, Pussy Grabber” by James Fulford
• January 18 2016—Bill Clinton’s Sexcapades Back In Public Domain – So Why Not MLK’s?
• January 17, 2016—Time To Rethink Martin Luther King Day, 2016 by Peter Brimelow
• January 19, 2015—Time To Rethink Martin Luther King Day by Peter Brimelow
• January 20, 2014—Happy MLK Day! (Why Oliver Stone Won’t Be Making The Biopic) by James Fulford
• January 29, 2013—“M Is For Martin Luther King Jr.” and Other Preschool Brainwashing by Athena Kerry
• January 20, 2013—On Martin Luther King Day: Another Plagiarist Of Color by Kathy Shaidle
• January 16, 2012—The Cult Of St. Martin Luther King—A Loyalty Test For Careerist Conservatives? by Paul Gottfried
• August 29, 2011—That Martin Luther King Memorial: “Free At Last”—Or Flash Mobs? by Cooper Sterling
• January 17, 2011—Truthout Correct on Martin Luther King by Patrick Cleburne
• January 17, 2011—Happy MLK Day! by James Fulford
• January 15, 2011—A White Martin Luther King Day? by James Fulford
• January 31, 2011—MLK in Oslo: It was the Blondes by Patrick Cleburne
• August 7, 2010—Glenn Beck, Martin Luther King, And The Massive Chinese Monument by A.W. Morgan
• January 19, 2009—When Records Are Sealed: A Meditation On Martin Luther King Day by James Fulford
• January 21, 2008—MLK vs. America In The Viet Nam War by James Fulford
• January 14, 2007 —MLK Day Meditation: The Left, The Right, The Reverend—Which Side Was He On? by Alexander Hart
• February 26, 2005—Sam Francis and Martin Luther King by Peter Brimelow
• February 16, 2005—The King Holiday And Its Meaning by Sam Francis
• January 17, 2005—Mexicanizing Martin Luther King by Terry Graham
• January 16, 2005—Random Reflections on Martin Luther King Day by Steve Sailer
• January 30, 2004—“Free At Last” To Celebrate Immigration On Martin Luther King Day by Joe Guzzardi
• January 18, 2004—MLK Day: The Martin Luther King Cult by “Southern Sympathizer”
• January 18, 2004—Martin Luther King Day: The Rise Of The New Feudalism by Paul Craig Roberts
• January 5, 2004—Martin Luther King Day: A Preview in Rocky Mount N.C. by Sam Francis
• January 29, 2003—A Reader Says Pre-MLK America Needed Not Redeeming But Destroying; Peter Brimelow Comments
• January 19, 2003—Did Pre-MLK America Really Need Redemption? by Paul Gottfried
• January 27, 2003—Abolishing America, Cont’d: Black History…or Red? by Sam Francis
• December 7, 2003—The View From MLK Street by Steve Sailer
• January 23, 2002—Washington Down, King Up, GOP Out by Sam Francis
• July 26, 2001—Abolishing America (cont.): Rename FBI Building After Who? by Sam Francis
• January 19, 2000—MLK Competition by Peter Brimelow