XPost: alt.politics.conservative, alt.politics.democrats, alt.business   
   XPost: soc.culture.african.american   
   From: rkoch@banmlkday.com   
      
   Review of The Martin Luther King. Jr., Plagiarism Story,   
   edited by Theodore Pappas, (Rockford, Illinois: The   
   Rockford Institute, 1994) 107 pages.   
   By T.E. Wilder   
   Contra Mundum, No. 11, Spring 1994   
      
   The fact that with our student body largely Southern in   
   constitution a colored   
   man should be elected to and be popular [in] such a position is   
   in itself no   
   mean recommendation. The comparatively small number of forward-   
   looking   
   and thoroughly trained negro leaders is, as I am sure you will   
   agree, still so   
   small that it is more than an even chance that one as adequately   
   trained as   
   King will find ample opportunity for useful service. He is   
   entirely free from   
   those somewhat annoying qualities which some men of his race   
   acquire when   
   they find themselves in the distinct higher percent of their   
   group.   
      
   The extract is from the letter of recommendation for Martin   
   Luther King which Crozer   
   Theological Seminary professor Morton Enslin wrote to Boston   
   University. (p. 87) As   
   one liberal to another, Enslin wanted to make clear that King   
   was their kind of negro. In it   
   we find the most significant key to understanding King's pre-   
   and post-mortem careers.   
   He was the liberals' boy.   
      
   This book is a collection of essays, letters and documents, most   
   of which appeared at   
   various times in Chronicles. The writers include the editor (of   
   both Chronicles and this   
   book), Theodore Pappas; journalist Frank Johnson of the London   
   Sunday Telegraph ;   
      
   Thomas Flemming; Jon Westling, Walter G. Muelder, and Peter Wood   
   of Boston   
   University; Peter Waldman of the Wall Street Journal; Charles   
   Babington (writing in The   
   New Republic); with a foreword by Jacob Neusner. The last, while   
   writing some of the   
   bluntest comments condemning the unprincipled publishing   
   industry and hypocritical   
   academy, is still typical of our time in his inability to come   
   to terms with actualities of   
   King's character and career. He speaks of “the authentic   
   achievements of Martin Luther   
   King, Jr.” and “the glories of his brief courageous life.” (p.   
   19)   
      
   What this book makes clear is that King, who came from a family   
   of shysters turned   
   preachers, began cheating, plagiarizing and otherwise lying when   
   in high school and   
   never gave it up. Lacking the aptitude for serious scholarly   
   work, in his passage through   
   various liberal schools, particularly theological seminary and   
   graduate school, he   
   expressed a devotion to the various icons of apostate theology   
   and socialist thought, and   
   the professors accounted this unto him for righteousness. There   
   were, as Enslin put it, few   
   “forward-looking and thoroughly trained negro leaders” (i.e.   
   churchmen processed and   
   accredited by apostate seminaries) and King showed that he knew   
   how to take direction   
   and fit into liberal circles. He was a man they could use.   
      
   It is easy to see the liberals' problem. While the black church   
   then was as replete with   
   scoundrels as it is today, they did not see liberal theology and   
   agitation as the basis for   
   their careers. As a result, the great mass of blacks in the   
   South were a barrier to the   
   liberals' social plans. Nor were there many leaders in the black   
   churches liberals could   
   use. (This has since been remedied, mainly by the enviable fame   
   and success of King and   
   his methods, but partly though lowering of academic standards to   
   augment the army of   
   properly indoctrinated and certified blacks). Men like King   
   could (and did, the liberals   
   were right) give the black churches a new direction, converting   
   them from obstacles to   
   liberal assets.   
      
   There are two things to be gained from reading this short book   
   for yourself. The first is an   
   appreciation of the massive scope of King's plagiarism, which   
   was certainly known in his   
   day. (The press did not think it would help the cause to report   
   it.) Presumably the   
   segregationists, since they did not capitalize on King's many   
   plagiarisms, were simply too   
   ignorant to recognize them.1   
      
   For it is not only in his dissertation that King plagiarized. He   
   did so as an undergraduate   
   in Morehouse College, and throughout his seven years of graduate   
   study, particularly in   
   papers in his major field, theology. King may simply have lacked   
   the talent to succeed   
   honestly in academics. “In fact, we know from his scores on the   
   Graduate Record Exam   
   that King scored in the second lowest third on his advanced test   
   in philosophy—the very   
   subject he would concentrate in at B.U.” (p. 88)   
      
      
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