3 Differences Between Martin Luther King and BLM

The HuffPost featured this photoshopped image on
their website, apparently trying to link King to BLM. 

“I look to a day when people will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.” —Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

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I said to some of my students the other day that Martin Luther King would roll over in his grave if he knew about Black Lives Matter (BLM) and what it's doing today! 

Besides the fact that BLM wasn't even around in the 1950s and 60s (BLM was founded in 2013), here are three differences that I see between Martin Luther King and BLM: 

1.) Martin Luther King believed in non-violent protests (emphasis on non-violent) and “a courageous confrontation of evil by the power of love.”[1] Many people may not know this, but Martin Luther King was also a winner of the Nobel Peace Prize! By way of contrast, one BLM leader has said, “If this country doesn’t give us what we want, then we will burn down this system and replace it.”[2] That sure doesn't sound like nonviolence to me!

2.) Martin Luther King was a Bible-believing Baptist minister, not a Marxist or a Communist.[3] In an article titled “Was Martin Luther King a Marxist?,” Adam Fairclough writes, “Lawrence Reddick, King’s friend and biographer, had anticipated such verdicts years earlier. ‘Neither by experience nor reading is King a political radical’, he wrote in 1959. ‘There is not a Marxist bone in his body.’”[4] By way of contrast, the leaders of BLM said in a 2015 interview, “We are trained Marxists.” It seems to me that BLM has more in common with the Black Panthers and what they believed and taught, than it does with Martin Luther King![5]

3.) Martin Luther King was a Baptist preacher who believed in the importance of the family structure in the home. For example, he said, “The group consisting of mother, father and child is the main educational agency of mankind.”[6] What’s more, in his book Strive Toward Freedom, Martin Luther King called the family “our most fundamental social unit”. Obviously he didn’t believe in the destruction of the family! In contrast to this, on the Black Lives Matter website, one of their demands proclaims: “We disrupt the Western prescribed nuclear-family-structure requirement….”[7] 

Dear reader, on this day when we remember the great Martin Luther King and what he believed and what he stood for, I want to say: Beware of BLM! What BLM stands for is far different than what Martin Luther King believed in and advocated. 

References: 

[1] “Nonviolence”. The Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute. Stanford University. https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/encyclopedia/nonviolence 

[2] “BLM leader: If change doesn’t happen, then ‘we will burn down this system’”. New York Post (June 25, 2020). https://nypost.com/2020/06/25/blm-leader-if-change-doesnt-happen-we-will-burn-down-this-system/

[3] “Communism”. The Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute. Stanford University. https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/encyclopedia/communism 

[4] Adam Fairclough, “Was Martin Luther King a Marxist?” JSTOR, Number 15 (Spring, 1983), pp. 117-125. https://www.jstor.org/stable/4288462?seq=1 

[5] “Black Power”. The Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute. Stanford University. https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/encyclopedia/black-power (accessed Jan. 18, 2021). Also see the Wikipedia article titled "Black Panther Party". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Panther_Party

[6] “MARTIN LUTHER KING JR. QUOTES ON FAMILY”. The Borgen Project. https://borgenproject.org/martin-luther-king-jr-quotes-on-family/

[7] Mike Gonzoles and Andrew Olivastro, “The Agenda of Black Lives Matter Is Far Different From the Slogan”. The Heritage Foundation. July 3, 2020. 

https://www.heritage.org/progressivism/commentary/the-agenda-black-lives-matter-far-different-the-slogan