J.Edgar Hoover did the world one really big favor, as far as I'm concerned,though that certainly wasn't his intention. But in conducting illegal surveillance on the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., acting probably with the tacit approval of the Kenedy Administration, he did indeed uncover the truth about King. That truth was disgusting and sordid to Hoover,but that reveals in itself the kind of man Hoover was as much as it does about King. The kind of man Hoover was? Well, not much of one, regrettably. As for King, he was, thankfully, a man, a real, honest to God, flesh and blood man. A "tomcat" to Hoover, a subversive with communist connections-but a man, nevertheless. A real, honest to God, flesh and blood man, the kind of man who knows what he is about, warts and all, and yet still determined to rise above his follies and foibles, his flesh and blood limitations, and make a better life, not just for himself, but for everybody.
One thing that is often overlooked about his presence in Memphis those last days leading up to the time of his assasination, is that he was there in support of a garbage workers strike. Although there may have been a preponderance of black workers, I think it's safe to assume there was an appreciable amount of white garbage workers in Memphis Tennessee as well. Even if not,there can be no doubt that Kings actions were in support of working folks of all colors, all races.
What he accomplished is beyond scope, and really hard to understand, coming from a context of those who lived after the era of the civil rights movement. To an extent, those days seem as distant and as mythical as the antediluvian age. But they were real. Real people were marginalized, sufferred,and were murdered, and all of us sufferred a loss of our humanity due to the nature of what was really an ongoing misery of the human condition. Along with the likes of Ghandi and Mandela, King belongs to that very small class of people who honestly helped,and lead the way, in making life better not just for a few, but for humanity as a whole.
It is way too easy to mythologize a man such as him, and this does him no real honor. Nor does it help the average person, in fact, it defeats the whole purpose of Kings very real message,that people, real people, can change, can make things different, can make the world and humanity better.
I am happy to honor Dr. Martin Luther King on this day. But at the same time, I am glad to know it is a man that I so honor. That does not detract from his legacy, not in the least. In fact, when you stop to think about it, it makes him all that much more of an inspiration.
