If there is anyone in all of America, in any corner of the world who should be able to rest in peace, it’s Martin Luther King Jr.
But they won’t let him.
Who are they?
They are the ones who pretend that they have loved King all along, even though they try to tear down his civil rights legacy at every turn.
They are the ones who can quote one line from the hundreds of speeches King made about injustice, poverty, war and non-violence and pretend that he was against affirmative action, workplace diversity and anything else that seeks to level a historically uneven playing field.
They are the ones who delight in any hint at a moral character flaw, as if the movement he built with Jesse Jackson, Ralph Abernathy, Diane Nash, Coretta Scott King, John Lewis, Andrew Young and thousands of nameless protesters and freedom riders was like some kind of fragile Jenga game that would collapse with the removal of just one stick.
They are the ones who — right this very minute — are trying to dig King out of the grave and assassinate him all over again.
That’s how King’s own daughter put it last week after the Trump administration released thousands of files on the King assassination in 1968.
Bernice King, the youngest child of the slain civil rights leader, and CEO of The King Center in Atlanta, had only three words on social media for President Trump after the files were released.
The challenge, accompanied by a picture of her father giving what appears to be a side-eye glance, was an obvious Twitter taunt amid calls for Trump to release government files related to disgraced financier, suspected sex trafficker and one-time Trump acquaintance Jeffrey Epstein.
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FILE – The Rev. Ralph Abernathy, right, and Bishop Julian Smith, left, flank Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., during a civil rights march in Memphis, Tenn., March 28, 1968. (AP Photo/Jack Thornell, File)
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FILE – The Rev. Ralph Abernathy, right, and Bishop Julian Smith, left, flank Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., during a civil rights march in Memphis, Tenn., March 28, 1968. (AP Photo/Jack Thornell, File)
But the keeper of the legacy had much more to say in an op-ed piece in Vanity Fair that mentioned the “commentary, cruelty, and controversy” she said she and her family continue to navigate.
Bernice King was just 5 years old when a rifle bullet shattered her father’s jaw, severed his necktie, ripped through his spinal cord and knocked him out of one of his shoes as he stood on the balcony of a Memphis motel.
“As my siblings and I grew up without a father, we were often reminded that he was assassinated while seeking to make the world a better place,” Bernice King wrote, noting subsequent attacks on his character.
“Our mother, Coretta Scott King, prepared us for these repeated attempts, saying, “They keep trying to assassinate your father over and over again.”
Bernice King also reminded the public of how the martyr’s death impacted her family.
“His tragic death has been an intensely personal grief — a devastating loss for his wife, children, and the granddaughter he never met — an absence our family has endured for over 57 years,” she said in a statement with her brother, Martin Luther King III. “We ask those who engage with the release of these files to do so with empathy, restraint, and respect for our family’s continuing grief.”
Good luck with that.
The timing of the release suggests something else.
“We need to be crystal clear on the fact that Trump releasing the MLK assassination files is not about transparency or justice,” said the Rev. Al Sharpton, president of the National Action Network. “It’s a desperate attempt to distract people from the firestorm engulfing Trump over the Epstein files and the public unraveling of his credibility among the MAGA base.
He said King’s legacy “will not be weaponized to serve Trump’s cynical agenda.”
Last year, Trump nearly suffered King’s fate when a killer’s bullet grazed his right ear at a campaign rally.
He should just be glad the government is not releasing assassination files about him.
