Opinion | A Black Feminist’s Response to Attacks on Martin Luther King Jr.’s Legacy

The #MeToo movement is the culmination of decades of agitation around the pervasive problems of sexual assault and harassment. Rich and famous sexual predators have been brought down by the courageous stories of women who are finally being believed. In this climate, Mr. Garrow seems to want his own “Me first” spotlight by getting out in front of an unsubstantiated story, but the problem is this: He presumptuously tells his version of stories of women who never themselves acknowledged being victims or survivors. We cannot put the F.B.I.’s words in their mouths and call it justice.

If in 2027 when the full F.B.I. tapes are released there is credible and corroborated evidence that a sexual assault occurred and Dr. King was somehow involved, we will have to confront that relevant and reprehensible information head-on. But we are not there.

Meanwhile, to accept highly suspicious evidence as fact and to dress it up with a litany of salacious anecdotes is to complete the job J. Edgar Hoover failed to do two generations ago, when he dedicated himself to denigrating Dr. King’s life and work. Mr. Garrow’s piece also names numerous black women, most of them dead, who were allegedly Dr. King’s willing romantic partners, delving into their private lives without their consent or any compelling reason. This is as reckless and unethical as the actions of newspaper tabloids that circulate titillating gossip to sell papers.

Given the expressed mission of the agency to thwart Dr. King — with one agent going so far as to urge him to kill himself — we have to wonder where fact ends and fiction begins in the reports that Mr. Garrow cites. He knows that the F.B.I. went to great lengths in a ruthless effort to undermine Dr. King, whom they feared was a puppet of Communist operatives. He writes about this in his 1981 book on the subject as have many others, and yet now he accepts these F.B.I. summaries as having passed the smell test.

Ella Baker, who worked alongside Dr. King for many years, warned us of the dangers of putting individual leaders on pedestals. They are human beings like the rest of us. We can criticize their failings and still find value in their contributions, so long as we are learning lessons and not looking for someone to worship. Again, we must draw a hard line between charges of extramarital affairs and the charge of egging on a rapist. The bottom line is Dr. King was not a saint nor a savior, but one man embedded in a larger movement that made a powerful impact on this nation and the world.

At a time of resurgent white nationalism, Dr. King’s message of racial and economic justice, and the movement that he built alongside thousands of other imperfect people, is still vitally important. We have to grapple with his full legacy, whatever it turns out to be and however uncomfortable it makes us. But Mr. Garrow’s account of F.B.I. spying and half-baked findings does not give us the information we need to do this. Sadly, conservative pundits have already taken the story and run with it, true or not.

What historians do know for sure is this: Dr. King was a radical visionary of a more just society, a powerful, committed and eloquent voice for freedom, justice and equality, principles that are under full-scale assault at this moment. How unfortunate that the legitimacy of his entire legacy, and by extension the movement of which he was a part, is being called into question in such a sloppy manner today. How disturbing that the vitally important issue of sexual violence is being deployed and distorted in the process. All of this in this crucible moment, what Dr. King referred to in his own time as the “fierce urgency of now.”

Barbara Ransby (@BarbaraRansby), a professor of history, gender and women’s studies and African-American studies at the University of Illinois at Chicago, is the author of “Ella Baker and the Black Freedom Movement,” “Eslanda” and “Making All Black Lives Matter.”

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