Taylor Branch is the critically acclaimed biographer of Martin Luther King Jr. (MLK). At Canaan’s Edge is the third volume of his MLK trilogy. But it’s generating hype for portraying MLK as a womanizer more than a civil rights leader.
Jon Meacham is Newsweek’s eminent historian. On Sunday’s edition of Meet the Press, he recommended this third volume as a must-read. I’ve read Branch’s first two volumes (and excerpts from this one). Based on that, iPINIONS seconds Meacham’s recommendation. I don’t excuse King’s flaws. I simply note that moral giants are often personally imperfect, and that truth shouldn’t be taboo.
This volume lays bare the behind-the-scenes intrigues that beset the Civil Rights Movement. Those intrigues include MLK’s power struggles with upstarts like Jesse Jackson. But they also include titillating tidbits from FBI warrantless wiretaps.
MLK was a womanizer
Former FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover had a prurient interest in MLK’s sex life. Only this explains the FBI’s warrantless surveillance of MLK.
But it also explains why we know as much about MLK’s womanizing as we do about JFK’s. Frankly, FBI tapes exposed MLK as a sex fiend.
Branch chronicles the complex and often fractious relationships among civil rights leaders. No doubt he hopes that will interest readers most of all. But the current issue of TIME suggests that’s a forlorn hope.
The title of its cover story, “The Secret Agony of Martin Luther King Jr.,” speaks volumes. And the subtitle promises the inside story on his troubled final days. But it’s mostly innuendoes about his sex life.
This quote is a fair summary of this TIME article:
His womanizing was the source of such agonizing moral conflict that MLK was compelled to confess his most enduring extramarital affair to his wife at ‘her most vulnerable moment – days after she recovered from a hysterectomy.’
There! Awful, isn’t it? Everyone denounced Newt Gingrich for the way he served his wife divorce papers. Because he did so while she was recovering in hospital from uterine cancer surgery. But who knew MLK was as much of a heartless jerk as Gingrich…
More to the point, millions will read TIME’s story. And, forlorn or not, Branch would be happy if the number of people who read his book amounts to a fraction of that.
To be fair, though, there is redeeming value in TIME highlighting this darker side of MLK’s life. After all, it might disabuse Americans of their naïve and hypocritical regard for marital fidelity. This is a cognitive dissonance devoutly to be wished.
Never mind the positive correlation it posits. Because womanizing has featured as a “tragic flaw” in the lives of many great leaders. Others like Thomas Jefferson, Dwight Eisenhower, and even Nelson Mandela come to mind.
Legacy Note: With over 5,600 posts spanning 20 years, I am easily the most prolific blogger on the most eclectic array of topics on the web. That makes The iPINIONS Journal an unparalleled archive of informed political and cultural commentary. Visit the ARCHIVES section in the sidebar or search by topic. You won’t find a more consistent, independent voice on world affairs.
Anonymous says
Whether or not someone in politics is faithful to their spouse has nothing to do in my opinion with how effective or ineffective they are as a political leader or in any socio economic function. Clinton did a fabulous job while in office in my opinion and that is all that was dwelled upon was an affair towards the end. The Country was thriving, world relations were good. In contrast, women can be and are just as unfaithful nowadays. This does not mean that this same woman cannot be a good physician, lawyer or mother because she has affairs. It is no one’s business who is in who’s bedroom.
Mary
Anonymous says
Amen Mary… I have had about all I can take from the professional talking heads (and those who follow them blindly) as they try to define the moral boundaries. Maybe my view is a bit narrow, but aside from my wife, I really don’t care who is sleeping with who.
Rage….
Anonymous says
Bravo Mary and Rage….
This is a truly brilliant piece of writing Mr ALH. Though I could never express it so well and in such topical context too, I have long felt this way about the obsession in America about the private lives of their politicians, like that Monica Lewinsky business. Your slamming the profit motives of TIME was also priceless. Well done.
James
Anonymous says
it must be so easy for you to sit on your high horse an say the rest of us should get over men who cheat on their wives. but if he can’t be trusted to honor his marriage or religious vows then martin luther king is no better than all the other low-lifes who step out on their wives and families. you need to be born again my brother!!!
Anonymous says
Religious (Designee) Anonymous Without Signature-
This is what bothers me about ultra religious people in their religious boat. There are other international and national humanitarian topics that should take precedence over this continued foolish controversy of fidelity amongst partners (some people actually have open marriages – who is anyone to judge this situation?) such as eradication of child pornography, female circumsicion (mutiliation of female children’s genitilia), poverty and wars. Why not spend some of that energy on these issues and making a difference as opposed to obsession with sexuality between consenting adults and what takes place in the privacy of one’s home?
Mary
Anonymous says
Anthony, James and Rage, it pleases me to hear other progressives…other kindred spirits cognizant of pertinent issues…sometimes my pseudo-intelllectual friend Amber and I have felt that we were the only community of the sane….and that there was no where we could turn any longer on this planet…
you are a breath of fresh air
Mary
Anonymous says
mary
it dont surprise me that men would see nothing wrong about steppin out on their wives but i don’t get you girl. i suppose you one of them desperate anything my man wants is fine by me women. i think you need jesus and therapy.
and my name is lisa johnson and i live on los angeles!
Anonymous says
Lisa ..I think you gotten the wrong impression about me…First, I am no girl, I am a Woman and I am hardly a little mouse sitting in the corner for a few morsels to chew that my husband will throw at me…to the contrary…I am very liberated and just how do you know that I don’t step out on my husband? Or whether or not we have an open marriage? How do you do know that I have not found Jesus? You are rather presumptious and by the way..who made you the designee over how anyone else should live?
Mary…Bay Area
allie says
Hi Mary – I told a few of my friends about your comments and how Ms Johnson from Los Angeles responded and we all wondered how we would react. I don’t think any of us would have handled her with the class you showed.
Way to go.
Allie
Mary says
Thank you for your very kind words Allie..I try to take the high road whenever I can …
Mary
Anonymous says
When you get married, you vow to “…forsake all others”. If you break that vow, then no, it doesn’t make you a bad physician or lawyer. It does, however make you a liar and at the very least someone of questionable character. In terms of public service, it’s not about the morality (or lack thereof) of committing adultery. It’s about the uncertainty that exists concerning the integrity of a person who betrays the most solemn of vows. Clinton’s affair was not what was “dwelled upon”. It was the fact that he looked his fellow countrymen in the eye, pointed his finger in their face, and LIED. My argument boils down to this: If you will lie to the one you supposedly care about more than anyone in the world, how could anyone else ever trust you with anything?
Tally says
It’s all up to the spouses to determine what happens in their relationship. If one is not satisfied, THEY WILL CHEAT! It’s human behavior, and how are politicians and world leaders excluded from human behavior? Did Clinton botch his presidency while having an affair? No! He did a pretty darn good job, in fact.
Marriage is supported by TWO people, not ONE person. If one collapses, then the other will do so as well. That is what people fail to comprehend about infidelity and ask the question, “Why did they cheat?”
They KNOW that it’s morally wrong, and they KNOW it’s a lie, but they justify it by blaming it on others.
And when you’ve got the nation’s future on the line, why the heck should you care about what happens in their personal life? Shouldn’t it be the quality of what they do in public eye matter? If Martin Luther King Jr. cheated on his wife, did that effect the Civil Rights Movement? I didn’t think so. Here we are, TODAY, perhaps facing our first African American elected to presidency. That’s a big accomplishment that King should at least have some credit in, as well as Obama.
Tally
jack says
okay, i’ll bite. i strongly disagee with mary.
jack says
mary, it does matter how one conducts him/herself in their personal life, as well as in their professional life. the two are insepretable when one is given previlege to serving the public. an act of infidelity by a public servant, especially on the grand scale of being the President or a high ranking governing officer, should not only be looked as an act of immorality(whatever that is) but more importantly, an egregious act of being unethical. that’s the problem with people like mary, they will sell out their own belief in regards to ethics, in order to validate their polical partisanship. ethics, the lack there of, is why we are in an economic mess we’re in now. for the record i am an agnostic and not a republican. also, i think most of these acts of infidelity take place in hotel/motel rooms and not in our homes, as so many of you listed.
Thomas says
“Have you not read that He who made them at the beginning made them male and female
and said ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife and the two shall become one flesh’?
So then, they are no longer two but one flesh.”
Matthew 19:4-6
Genia says
Personally, I feel that marital infidelity is reflective of a person’s true moral & ethical convictions & strength. For me, it is difficult to separate any & all good a person may accomplish in their life when at least one crucial component of their behavior is not honorable. If they can waiver in their marital vows, where else & when might they be equivocal.
Doug says
It wasn’t like MLK just had a little “affair”. Once you look beneath the surface you discover that he was more depraved than the average perv. There are several stories of MLK being caught in embarrassing sexual situations which were all motivated by his own out of control libido. Oh, and as far as the wire tapping goes, it was ordered by the democrats in power and was done because of MLKs suspected and later confirmed communist ties.
stephan says
good job doug you have the most facts then anyone that has posted yyet but you left somethings out
1. the person who ordered the wire taps on kings hotel rooms was the attorney general bobby kennedy
2.not only was king a womenizer he was arrested for running after a women naked in a hotel that is worst then what bill cliton did.
3. king was a communist this is not a lie it was confirmed by correta king who was handed a file containing all of the wire taps down on king that file is to be relased to the public in the year 2027
4. why everywhere he went when he preached of non-violence that violence often ensued and dont say that the police used violence because they were just standing around no something happened and then the police acted.
5. also the wire taps will show that king was gay yes thats right gay he had homosexual relations with another minister
so mary or whoever wants to say that we should not judgee on the personal life of our politics well i guess you would like a communsits as presidents i dont know you can check my claims and when you find out they right you can try and write something about this topic but i dont think that you will be able to.
Je' says
I see the argument that one’s personal ethics have nothing to do with their professional ethics, as if we can divide ourselves somehow. Even non-religious people are devastated when the person they love betrays their trust, and lies and cheats on them (Cheating always involves lying) Rather than try to say it all right, admit it is not all right, and though the person may have made a difference for good in other areas, the cheating itself is morally reprehensible.
eddie munsey says
Pathetic is what you are. The implication that we should be more receptive lying and infidelity is totally insane. No wonder your filthy rag of a magazine verges on collapse.
Jim says
Fidelity has everything to do with leadership. When leadership is motivated buy the charge for greatness, money, fame, etc vs. service to their fellow man then the illusions that come with being elevated lead one to believe they are above the law, so to speak, in the moral realm and will do what their flesh desires and the circumstances opportunity and become womanizers. To suggest that womanizing is at attribute of greatness is quite misguided.
Lorrie Meija says
It doesn’t bother me that he slept with other women, especially if his wife was foolish enough to put up with him. It bothers me that there was proof that he beat women he hired for sex. Nobody wants to address this; there are recordings of him abusing women. This is enough to make me not respect him; not the adultery.