Great Moments in Black History - The January 1965 "Playboy" Interview with Martin Luther King

Wait.. I thought MLK was a Republican? But he told Playboy he was against prayer in school?? Does not compute...

There exists a cult in America -- the cult of Martin Luther King, Jr. Luckily, a document exists from the most unlikely of sources that offers a glimpse into the worldview of MLK himself -- Playboy magazine interviewed King himself in its January 1965 issue, and from it, we get these telling quotes:

Playboy:  

Along with the other civil rights leaders, you have often proposed a massive program of economic aid, financed by the Federal Government, to improve the lot of the nation’s 20,000,000 million Negroes. Just one of the projects you’ve mentioned… is expected to cost $141,000,000 over the next ten years, and that includes only Harlem. A nationwide program such as you propose would undoubtedly run into the billions.   

King:  

About 50 billion, actually – which is less than one year of our present defense spending. It is my belief that with the expenditure of this amount over a ten-year period, a genuine and dramatic transformation could be achieved in the conditions of Negro life in America. I am positive, moreover, that the money spend would be more than amply justified by the benefits that would accrue to the nation through a spectacular decline in school dropouts, family breakups, crime rates, illegitimacy, swollen relief rolls, rioting and other social evils. 

 Playboy: 

Do you think it’s realistic to hope that the Government would consider an appropriation of such magnitude other than for national defense? 

 King: 

I certainly do. This country has the resources to solve any problems once that problem is accepted as national policy. An example is aid to Appalachia, which has been made a policy of the Federal Government’s much-touted war on poverty; one billion was proposed for its relief – without making the slightest dent in the defense budget. Another example is the fact that after WWII, during the years when it became policy to build and maintain the largest military machine the world has ever known, America also took upon itself, through the Marshall Plan and other measures, the financial relief and rehabilitation of millions of European peoples. If America can afford to underwrite its allies and ex-enemies, it can certainly afford, - and has a much greater obligation, as I see it – to do at least as well by its own no-less-needy countrymen. 

 Playboy: 

 Do you feel it’s fair to request a multibillion-dollar program of preferential treatment for the Negro, or for any other minority group?  

King:  

I do indeed. Can any fair-minded citizen deny that the Negro has been deprived? Few people reflect that for two centuries the Negro was enslaved, and robbed of any wages – potential accrued wealth which would have been the legacy of his descendants. All of America’s wealth today could not adequately compensate its Negroes for his centuries of exploitation and humiliation. It is an economic fact that a program such as I propose would certainly cost far less than any computation of unpaid wages plus accumulated interest. In any case, I do not intend that his program of economic aid should apply only to the Negro; it should benefit the disadvantaged of all races. 

 Playboy: 

If a nationwide program of preferential employment for Negroes were to be adopted, how would you propose to assuage the resentment of whites who already feel that their jobs are being jeopardized by the influx of Negroes resulting from desegregation?  

King: 

We must develop a Federal program of public works, retraining and jobs for all – so that none, white or black, will have cause to feel threatened… together, they could exert massive pressure on the Government to get jobs for all. Together, they could form a grand alliance. Together, they could merge all people for the good of all. 

 Playboy: 

If Negroes are also granted preferential treatment in housing, as you propose, how would you allay the alarm with which many white homeowners, fearing property devaluation, greet the arrival of Negroes in hitherto all-white neighborhoods?  

King: 

We must expunge from our society the myths and half-truths that engender such groundless fears as these. In the first place, there is no truth to the myth that Negroes depreciate property. The fact is that most Negroes are kept out of residential neighborhoods so long that when one us is finally sold a home it’s already depreciated. In the second place, we must dispel the negative and harmful atmosphere that has been created by avaricious and unprincipled realtors who engage in “blockbusting.” 

 If we had in America really serious efforts to break down discrimination in housing, and at the same time a concerted program of Government aid to improve housing for Negros, I think that many white people would be surprised at how many Negroes would choose to live among themselves, exactly as Poles and Jews and other ethnic groups do. 

 Playboy: 

 One of the most controversial issues of the past year, apart from civil rights, was the question of school prayer, which has been ruled unlawful by the Supreme Court. [Alabama Gov. George] Wallace, among others, has denounced the decision. How do you feel about it?  

King:  

I endorse it. I think it was correct. Contrary to what many have said, it sought to outlaw neither prayer nor belief in God. In a pluralistic society such as ours, who is to determine what prayer shall be spoken, and by whom? Legally, constitutionally or otherwise, the state certainly has no such right. I am strongly opposed to the efforts that have been made to nullify the decision. They have been motivated, I think, by little more than the wish to embarrass the Supreme Court. When I saw Brother Wallace going up to Washington to testify against the decision at the Congressional hearings, it only strengthened my conviction that the decision was right.  (p. 65 – 78)

So, Martin Luther King – in 1965 – came out against prayer in school, for a massive redistribution of wealth from white taxpayers to blacks, and set every conceivable law of economics on its head in determining black labor was somehow worth more than the wealth white America had accrued.

With hindsight being 20/20, the awesome power of the Visible Black Hand of Economics to bring not only depreciation, but total ruin to cities like Detroit and Birmingham once they took power, all fears of white property owners (be it residential or commercial) were justified.

Wait, MLK advocating confiscatory levels of taxation on whites to pay for a redistribution of wealth to blacks, too?

Here, in all its glory, is Martin Luther King – a man who believed in confiscatory levels of taxation on white wealth to be redistributed to his people and programs setup that would grant black people preferential treatment when it came to residential housing.

Oh, and he agreed with the Supreme Court that prayer in school should remain “unconstitutional” – so for all you Christians who bow before MLK, remember that when you send in donations to Beltway non-profits attempting to restore your children’s ability to pray in public schools.

Gov. Wallace fought for their right to pray in school; MLK didn’t.

One thing I do agree with from this Playboy-Martin Luther King interview from 1965 is that this country does have the ability to address any problem once it becomes national policy – that is, when this country was still a nation and actually followed through on national policy.

Remember – we went to the moon in 1969, and it was MLKs henchmen of Organized Blackness who protested this Apollo Mission, because it was money that could have been spent addressing the poverty black people created wherever they went.

Hilariously, King told Playboy that if he could send one person to a desert island it would be Barry Goldwater. Sen. Goldwater had just lost the presidential election in 1964, and King said:

"Until that defeat, Goldwater was the most dangerous man in America. He talked soft and nice, but he gave aid and comfort to the most vicious racists and the most extreme rightists in America. He gave respectability to views totally alien to the democratic process. Had he won, he would have led us down a fantastic path that would have totally destroyed America as we know it.” (p. 77)

Wait – I thought MLK was a Republican!?!? After all, Ronald Reagan repackaged Goldwater’s ideas and won two landslide victories in the 1980s… surely, MLK was just lying when he tossed Goldwater under the bus in 1965 -- after all, he was a Reaganite, right? Unfortunately, the Reagan Revolution was nothing but a Pyrrhic victories – Martin Luther King revolution - a radical black/Marxist one - won, which is why his statue is found in Washington D.C.

But for today, the 1965 Playboy interview with MLK stands as a Great Moment in Black History – it shows us clearly what he was, and what he wasn’t.