Was Martin Luther King a brilliant man?

[trumad]

I asked this question about Hitler yesterday and of course this is by no means a comparison. I'm just curious about people who have the ability to bring together large masses of followers and do it with the help of their oratory skills.

[BlooInBloo]

1. It's to be expected that many important distinctions will not be recognized....

... due simply to the coarseness of your tool "getting lots of people via oratory".

In particular, I've yet to see reason #1 why one would even so much as *suspect* a correlation - much less a constitutive relation - between the gift of gab, and brilliance.

All of which is not to say that MLK wasn't brilliant - of course he was. But the oratory was only one part of it - definitely not constitutive of his brilliance - and likely not even the largest distinguishable component.

[pooja]

2. He was brilliant... and a beautiful light that this world needed...

The flame of hope, courage, and strength.

[DemBones DemBones]

3. He'd probably have lost to Michael McKean on "Celebrity Jeopardy."

:rofl:

[trumad]

4. LOL

Now some will come into this thread and have no idea what you're talking about...I'll help them.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x2803152

[BlooInBloo]

5. Damn pre-emptive snark busters! grumblegrumblegrumble. :)

[rman]

6. A charismatic person, opposing injustice everywhere

It is because he was charismatic that he was a danger to the ruling class.

--

Jury rules King assassination a conspiracy

"An Act Of State - The Execution of MLK"
by William Pepper,
(ISBN: 1859846955, Verso January 1, 2003)
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1859846955/104-1291585-3918336?v=glance&n=283155

William Pepper is former attorney for James Earl Ray, and attorney for the King family.
He represents Pakistan as council for asset search and recovery work, trying to get back money that was stolen by prime ministers Buto and Sharif.


Excerpts from a lecture by William Pepper:

The King family had a long debate about whether or not to go through with this trial. Finally Coretta King stopped the debate. She said that in controversial situations she always asked herself what would Martin have done, what would he have wanted me to do, what would he have wanted this family to do. She said, without any doubt at all he would have said go and do it. And everybody else fell in line, because she makes those decisions for the family.

The trial was held in Memphis in 1999.
One year after filing we got the judge we wanted.
He was retiring. This was to be his last case.
It was a perfect situation for all of us.
This time it didn't take the jury seven hours,
it took them 59 minutes.
After 30 hours of testimony, 70 witnesses,
they came back with a verdict for the King family
which effectively exonerated James Earl Ray,
and ruled that there was a conspiracy to kill MLK,
involving agents of the government of the United States,
the State of Tennessee and the City of Memphis.
End of story, and you probably never heard of that verdict.
After the first 12 hours the trial didn't receive any publicity at all.


Some excerpts from the q&a:

Government officials are just foot soldiers for the real wealth and the power of transnational corporations.

The details and the control over public policy that these huge corporate entities now exert, means that elections in elected democracy is farcical in many parts of the world.

There is an interfacing with the military and with intelligence, because those are the ultimate protectors of the wealth of the rulers of the world.

Amnesty International has accused the Venezuelan commercial media of committing human rights violations because of their constant anti-government propaganda.

There are 2 major independent newspapers in the world: Le Monde and The Guardian.

"...if you ever get to read the Patriot Act, you know the end is there."
The senate vote on the Patriot Act was 99 to 1 (the one was Russ Feingold).

Some of the details revealed by the trial:
- there have been several assassination attempts on King before 1968
- commanding unit for the operation was the 902nd (military)
- involved were FBI, CIA, military, mafia
- primary shooter was civilian (mafia hit man hired by 902nd)
- 2 military sniper teams served as backup
- the actual hitman got away in a waiting Memphis traffic police car.

According to Pepper this is the most important assassination of the previous century, because MLK was the last of the 'freedom fighters' in the anglo-american world.

recommended reading:
John Pilger, "The new rulers of the world"
David Corton, "When corporations rule the world"
Carl Bernstein, Rolling Stone magazine, oct. 1977


video of the lecture
2 hrs, 700MB
http://www.chomskytorrents.org/TorrentDetails.php?TorrentID=862


----

also see

Democracy Now
Jury Rules King Assassination a Conspiracy
December 13th, 1999
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=03/04/07/0414233&mode=thread&tid=5

CNN
Ray's death won't end assassination controversy
Interview with William Pepper
April 23, 1998
http://www.cnn.com/US/9804/23/james.earl.ray.reax/

The King Center
Complete Transcript of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Assassination Conspiracy Trial
http://www.thekingcenter.org/news/trial.html

[izzie]

7. Time is the thing with many people.

He was smart. Master or PHD from Bu.

[H2O Man]

10. Rev. King was

also Dr. King.

[izzie]

26. And the right man for that time.

--

[Missy M]

8. He was a brilliant orator and knew the right buttons to push....

I think you have to be pretty smart to accomplish that. When I hear his speeches now I am still moved to tears.

[BlooInBloo]

9. As/more relevantly, he was a great *runtime* strategist.

That, combined with his base drive to create, rather than destroy, is why I think he's brilliant.

[acmejack]

11. No question about that.

I know more of his speeches than any others. They are memorable! The Mountain, I have a dream, what can one say-those are truly masterpieces of oratory, to my mind exceeding the William Jennings Bryan's Cross of Gold speech, which is often held up as the ultimate.

[Missy M]

13. The Cross of Gold speech is memorable.....

and the lines, "There are those who believe that, if you will only legislate to make the well-to-do prosperous, their prosperity will leak through on those below. The Democratic idea, however, has been that if you legislate to make the masses prosperous, their prosperity will find its way up through every class which rests upon them.", still apply today with the present administration. Another speech that always gets me is the Gettsyburg Address, though Martin Luther King speeches are on the top of the list for me.

[cosmik debris]

12. Without a doubt. n/t

[Ian David]

14. Junior or Senior?

Yes, I think he was brilliant.

His "Dream" speech should never be forgotten.

Strategically, politically, and logistically, he was very much a Statesman and a General.

[Bucky]

24. I think MLK Jr would have rejected both labels: (a Statesman and a General)

He said to think of him as a drum major; he didn't write the music, he only twirled the baton. That's kind of brilliant, too, investing his followers with the understanding that they own the movement too.

[rosesaylavee]

15. Yes. He was able to speak to the ideal

in each person who heard him and read his words. The world he described is what we are striving for - whether consciously or not.

They could kill him but they can't kill the world he envisioned.

[lonestarnot]

16. A brilliant orator, with conviction of truth and sanity. Altogether ideal credentials

for a truly great leader.

[nealmhughes]

17. He was a brilliant orator and theory guy. He provided a face to ahimsa in America.

His most brilliant act was one that tormented him to decide to do: the "unleashing" of the children.

But it was that decisiveness which could have ended in disaster and had many turn against him, that was great in him.

He was "brilliant." Probably the most quoted man in English language along with Jefferson, Paine, Churchill and Lincoln. That is pretty good company!

His agenda was simple and of Christlike proportion: simple yet all encompassing. His "I have a Dream" has to be up there with the Sermon on the Mount.

From a christocentric viewpoint, yes, he was brilliant. From an effective leader viewpoint, yes, he was brilliant. From a philosophical viewpoint, yes he was brilliant. Gee, I reckon him to have been brilliant...

[Fire Walk With Me]

18. He walked the walk. We were lucky to have him and need more like him.

[Bluerthanblue]

19. "A shining light" in a dark world, a man who had the courage and

self-LESSness to speak truth to power, to put his life on the line, to admit his failings and to seek the best even for those who fought to silence and kill him?

"Brilliant" in the truest sense of the word, in my opinion, and as I witnessed his life and watch his legacy.

blu

[omega minimo]

20. Obviously you've never read any of his writing or you wouldn't ask

unless this is flamebait.

[trumad]

27. Your post is flamebait

One of the beautiful things about DU is when folks posts questions like this, brilliant DUers respond with brilliant answers. That's how I learn about the subject at hand. Have I read his writings? No I haven't....but I just might now after reading some of the posts in this thread.

But thanks for your concern.

[G_Leo_Criley]

21. yes...

Martin Luther King was a visionary.

glc

[Dorian Gray]

22. I have no idea about either of their intelligence.

I believe both had charisma, which went a long long way in gaining followers. For MLK's cause, it was a good thing. For Hitler's destructive cause? Evil.

As for intelligence, I suspect they were intelligent. I don't know about their level of intelligence, however. They also both had ambition and drive, two things necessary in any leader.

I think that's about as far as I can go with any comparison of these two men.

[Bucky]

23. Brilliant as in really smart or brilliant as in light-giving?

The answer of course is both. He was brilliant by the measure of the clarity of his vision and the clarity with which he expressed it. He redefined everything we understood about race, class, and the duty to love our fellow man. The vision he brought to the public discourse completely changed how the country saw the debate over civil rights--turning it from one of whether it was justified to change long standing community traditions of Jim Crowism to a debate about the rights of all citizens to enjoy the freedoms for which our ancestors fought.

He changed the way people could affect change, too, from a question of whether you should hate or love to achieve change in an unjust society to showing that dramatic confrontation actions come out of the deepest sort of love--even the love of those who oppress you. That's not just brilliance, that's genius in the original sense of being a unique and trend-setting thinker.

[yurbud]

25. look up emotional intelligence

Both were probably above average intelligence, but it takes emotional intelligence to use those smart with other people effectively.

A lot of engineers and computer scientists are probably off the charts in terms of IQ but are socially autistic.