I think it comes back to Jeremiah Wright connection. I feel he has never fully emerged from publicly dismissing an associate of many years.
This is one I haven't given much thought. I will return to it when I have ...
I don't feel like MLK is any more responsible for the civil rights achievements than the more radical blacks. Was the establishment more comfortable with him? Absolutely.
Would they have budged if the black population consisted entirely of MLK types I doubt it. MLK was seen as desirable only against the backdrop of radical alternatives.
These are debatable points, but probably not on this thread. But one wonders: what were the "radical alternatives"? One has to keep in mind that at a certain point, Edgar Hoover and his boys had so thoroughly infiltrated and gone some way in compromising these "radical alternatives" that many were just jumping around and shooting themselves in the foot. Self-destruction. Keep in mind that Stokely Carmichael's break with the Black Panthers started when none other than Huey Newton suggested that he was an FBI/CIA stooge. For his part, Carmichael thought the Black Panthers were not "angry" enough, in that they wished to welcome white activists who supported the black cause. And don't forget that, even before that, a guy like Malcolm X was finished by none other than his "brothers in The True Faith of Allah". So what is the "backdrop of radical alternatives"? The "radicals" were busy finishing themselves!
In general, I have my doubts about "radical black alternatives". Are blacks in America in a position to bring the country (or at least serious chunks of it) to a grinding and miserable halt. Absolutely. Should Americans in general be concerned about that? I don't see why. Historically, and Baltimore now is no different, such riots have a worse effect on where blacks live and work than where "The Man" really is. So why should "The Man" be concerned. That too is, as I see it, part of Obama's message.
In 2 or 3 weeks, Baltimore will be calm; but there will be no large infusion of money or "let's really change Baltimore". There will be some talk of police reform. The Department of Justice will get involved, if the locals do nothing about the copper. And then it will mostly be forgotten. Except by those who will find that where they initially had little, they now have even less. Because they destroyed a nice chunk of it.