President Donald Trump has crossed the line. Trump, who continues to disrespect former President Barack Obama, who is hell-bent on repealing the Affordable Care Act, who shows disdain for civil rights and supports White supremacists, is now dragging Dr. Martin Luther King’s legacy through the mud.
Dr. Martin Luther King
Trump recently ordered the National Archive to release all documents relating to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. A 20-page dossier compiled by the FBI on Dr. Martin Luther King, dated three weeks before King’s April 4, 1968 assassination was part of the released documents. Nothing in the King dossier has anything to do with the JFK assassination. The 49-year-old King dossier was filed while J. Edgar Hoover, a well-known anti-King protagonist, was director of the FBI.
The 1968 King dossier asserts a number of damaging allegations including, financial irregularities within King’s Southern Christian Leadership Conference, King having connections with communist groups, and King allegedly engaging in sexual misconduct and having multiple affairs. None of these assertions about King appear to be verified or have any corroboration by Hoover or the FBI. Thus, at best, they are mere speculative observations from a time and by a Hoover FBI that viewed the entire civil rights movement of the 60’s as a threat to the security of this country. Hoover was wrong and off base then and his jaded observations and opinions are still wrong now!
Neither Trump nor the FBI have offered any explanation as to why the King dossier was included in the documents relating to the Kennedy assassination. Furthermore, no explanation has been offered as to why after 49 years, the Trump Administration felt compelled to make the King dossier public at this time.
We view the Trump Administration’s issuance of this damaging and insulting King dossier to be an intentional and significantly slanderous campaign to discredit Dr. Martin Luther King, America’s most influential and revered civil rights leader.
King died in his attempt to bring peace and unification to a racially polarized nation in the 1960s. Today, America remains deeply divided along racial lines. Given the series of despicable incidents that reflect Trump’s inability to utter the truth and his support of racists groups like we viewed in Charlottesville; this latest attempt by Trump to tarnish the reputation of one of America’s most respected Black heroes crystalizes, in our opinion, Trump’s unwillingness and inability to improve the racial environment that continues to decline during his leadership of our country.
The blame for this president’s failures, however, must be shared by the Republican party, whose quest for political legitimization causes them to consistently ignore the glaring short comings of Trump’s leadership as the head of the Republican party. Trump’s racist actions and continuing failure to unify America’s diverse citizen populations have cast a negative shadow over the entire Republican group. The recent loses the Republicans have suffered in this week’s elections is an indication of Trumps impact on his party’s political power.
As mid-term elections approach, it is imperative that all of the diverse American communities commit to remove the hurtful Republican domination in Congress. The racist actions of Trump and the Republicans must cease. The collective majority of this country’s citizens deserve to have a leadership that truly reflects, promotes and respects the reality of the unified diverse foundation these united states claim, and were originally intended, to personify.
Trump’s release of the King dossier is clear evidence of his miserable failure to unite America’s citizens.
Trump no longer has our support or respect for his leadership.