Sixty years ago this month, TIME named Martin Luther King Jr. 1963’s
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In short, this portrayal sounds nothing like something one would read about King in 2024.
The dichotomy reveals that has King has become mythologized—with major consequences for democracy today. Deifying King creates a contrast between him and social movement leaders in the present. That enables critics to scorn their tactics and deride their movements as being un-King-like.
It also discourages the hard activism necessary to create social change. As Dianne Nash, a founding leader of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC),
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Despite the reverence with which King is remembered, he was actually highly divisive during his life. In 1963, only 35% of white Americans had a favorable view of the reverend, a
Media discussion of King reflected this reality, including the Man of the Year profile.
The
Yet the accompanying feature, though largely positive about the civil rights movement, was anything but a hagiography of King himself.
In fact, reporter Marsh Clark conveyed outright skepticism about King’s leadership of the movement. Despite his prominence, King had “neither the quiet brilliance nor the sharp administrative capabilities of the N.A.A.C.P.’s Roy Wilkins.” He also lacked “the sophistication” and experience in dealing with business leaders that could be attributed to the National Urban League’s Whitney Young Jr., as well as “the inventiveness” of CORE’s James Farmer, “the raw militancy” of SNCC’s John Lewis, and “the bristling wit” of author James Baldwin.
Instead, King possessed “a raw-nerved sensitivity that bordered on self-destruction.” Clark described his style as “funeral conservatism.” The civil rights leader had “very little sense of humor” and the use of metaphors in his speeches was “downright embarrassing.” Clark conveyed how King’s “apparent lack of imagination” in plotting the Albany campaign—which ended in failure—had brought him to “his lowest ebb in the Negro movement.”
The portrayal certainly wasn’t all bad. Clark conveyed that King had “an indescribable capacity for empathy that was the touchstone of leadership” and discussed his gift for inspiring the masses. He also recounted King’s firm commitment to non-violence, even as white people reacted brutally to civil rights activism.
Broadly, Clark’s portrayal left open the question of whether King was worthy of being seen as the preeminent force in the civil rights movement.
This skeptical depiction is jarring to modern eyes, but it was consistent with media narratives about King at the time in the North and South alike.
Journalists continually questioned his leadership, substance, and tactics. In a 1963 story about the Birmingham campaign, for example, TIME had
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In addition to questioning his ability, the media, especially but not exclusively in the South, often charged that King was inciting violence, treating his philosophy of nonviolence with skepticism. In one story, the
And it wasn’t just King who confronted media scrutiny and skepticism in the early 1960s—it was the entire civil rights movement. News reports described civil rights protesters as “militant,” “outside agitators,” “disruptive,” and “unwise.” For example, in coverage of the nonviolent Birmingham campaign, the Washington Post reported, “Negroes overwhelmed local police officers by sheer force of numbers and swarmed into the downtown area.” This description made the demonstration sound more like an out-of-control mob than a well-organized, peaceful protest.
Newspapers also perpetuated conspiracy theories about alleged communist ties held by King and the movement more broadly. For example, a 1963 Boston Globe
Following TIME’s feature, King
In public, however, he was gracious,
What explains the great gap between how Clark and other reporters saw King during his life and the mythologized hero celebrated each January?
King’s assassination in 1968 ignited a 15-year battle to create a national holiday commemorating his birthday. While Coretta Scott King and members of the Congressional Black Caucus fought for the federal holiday, conservative white political leaders like Congressman Gene Taylor (R-Mo.), Senator Jesse Helms (R-N.C.), and Congressman John Ashbrook (R-Ohio) continually fought back. This fight laid the groundwork for a process through which the controversial, radical King who fought against the triple evils of racism, militarism, and capitalism disappeared and a whitewashed version of King, palatable to moderates and conservatives, took his place.
The concessions about King’s legacy worked. In 1983, Ronald Reagan
That is evident from the gap between the depiction of King in the media in the 1960s, and the celebration of him in 2024. That chasm also illustrates how the sanitized understanding of King distorts how Americans understand social movements in the present. By seeing King as the saintly patron of colorblindness and peace, beloved by all, an exceptional hero that the U.S. had not seen before and will never see again, it becomes possible to create a cultural disdain for civil disobedience in the present.
Those opposed to movements like Black Lives Matter can juxtapose social disruption with the
For example, a
This revisionist history enables politicians to roll back civil rights gains from
And it’s all based on a distorted perception of the past. The non-violent tactics practiced by King were called into question and faced similar claims in the 1960s.
Resurrecting the contemporary media portrayals of King also reveals that great leaders often are hated, vilified, and characterized as domestic threats. These leaders do not necessarily get star treatment from the media.
Understanding this reality can enable Americans in the present to get more curious about contemporary movements and interrogate feelings of antipathy toward their tactics.
If Americans comprehend that the great leaders of the past were recognizably human, that the idyllic social movements of American nostalgia were once wildly unpopular, they can see that such efforts are not relics of another time. They are still present in the U.S. in 2024. The question is whether Americans can recognize them?
Hajar Yazdiha is assistant professor of sociology at the University of Southern California. She is author of the book