This article is from the source 'guardian' and was first published or seen on . It last changed over 40 days ago and won't be checked again for changes.
You can find the current article at its original source at https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/jun/08/martin-luther-king-david-garrow-essay-claims
The article has changed 2 times. There is an RSS feed of changes available.
Previous version
1
Next version
| Version 0 | Version 1 |
|---|---|
| A historian's claims about Martin Luther King are shocking - and irresponsible | A historian's claims about Martin Luther King are shocking - and irresponsible |
| (1 day later) | |
| The Troubling Legacy of Martin Luther King, a controversial essay recently published by the American historian David Garrow in a conservative British magazine, has met with ambivalence in the American press and sparked fierce debate among historians. Armed with salacious archival material from a recent FBI documents release, Garrow has written a shocking account of the iconic civil rights leader’s sexual misconduct, ranging from numerous extramarital affairs and solicitation of prostitutes to the allegation that he was present during the violent rape of a Maryland churchgoer. | The Troubling Legacy of Martin Luther King, a controversial essay recently published by the American historian David Garrow in a conservative British magazine, has met with ambivalence in the American press and sparked fierce debate among historians. Armed with salacious archival material from a recent FBI documents release, Garrow has written a shocking account of the iconic civil rights leader’s sexual misconduct, ranging from numerous extramarital affairs and solicitation of prostitutes to the allegation that he was present during the violent rape of a Maryland churchgoer. |
| Garrow, a Pulitzer prize-winning King biographer and historian of the civil rights era, insists that a “fundamental … reconsideration of Martin Luther King’s historical reputation” is imminent. Indeed, Michael Mosbacher – a columnist for Standpoint, the magazine that agreed to publish the essay after it was rejected by publications including the Atlantic, Washington Post, New York Times and Guardian – went even further, arguing that the FBI recordings “reveal” King “to be the Harvey Weinstein of the civil rights movement”. | Garrow, a Pulitzer prize-winning King biographer and historian of the civil rights era, insists that a “fundamental … reconsideration of Martin Luther King’s historical reputation” is imminent. Indeed, Michael Mosbacher – a columnist for Standpoint, the magazine that agreed to publish the essay after it was rejected by publications including the Atlantic, Washington Post, New York Times and Guardian – went even further, arguing that the FBI recordings “reveal” King “to be the Harvey Weinstein of the civil rights movement”. |
| Martin Luther King: his life and legacy – in pictures | Martin Luther King: his life and legacy – in pictures |
| The debate about Garrow’s sensational revelations has prompted a compelling exchange among professional historians about the standards of historical evidence and use of state intelligence sources. | The debate about Garrow’s sensational revelations has prompted a compelling exchange among professional historians about the standards of historical evidence and use of state intelligence sources. |
| King’s sexual indiscretions have long been known or suspected; the more explosive claim in Garrow’s almost 8,000-word story hinges on a handwritten annotation on an FBI report alleging that King was present during a woman’s rape, and not only failed to intervene but actively encouraged the attack. | King’s sexual indiscretions have long been known or suspected; the more explosive claim in Garrow’s almost 8,000-word story hinges on a handwritten annotation on an FBI report alleging that King was present during a woman’s rape, and not only failed to intervene but actively encouraged the attack. |
| The intelligence document Garrow cites – a summary report, though not a direct transcript, of clandestine FBI recordings of King – nestles the rape allegation within a broader account of King’s multiple affairs with married and unmarried women, participation in orgies and direct exchange of money for sex. | |
| The document describes how King and a handful of Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) officials checked into Washington DC’s Willard hotel along with “several women ‘parishioners’”. | The document describes how King and a handful of Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) officials checked into Washington DC’s Willard hotel along with “several women ‘parishioners’”. |
| “The group met in his room and discussed which women among the parishioners would be suitable for natural and unnatural sex acts,” the report states. “When one of the women protested that she did not approve of this,” one of King’s colleagues “immediately and forcibly raped her”. The document does not name the alleged rapist, but Garrow identifies him as the Rev Logan Kearse, a Baptist minister from Baltimore. | “The group met in his room and discussed which women among the parishioners would be suitable for natural and unnatural sex acts,” the report states. “When one of the women protested that she did not approve of this,” one of King’s colleagues “immediately and forcibly raped her”. The document does not name the alleged rapist, but Garrow identifies him as the Rev Logan Kearse, a Baptist minister from Baltimore. |
| Alongside that typed passage are three barely legible handwritten notes that include two editorial suggestions and the addition of an explosive new claim: “King looked on, laughed and offered advice.” | Alongside that typed passage are three barely legible handwritten notes that include two editorial suggestions and the addition of an explosive new claim: “King looked on, laughed and offered advice.” |
| Amazingly, Garrow hangs his entire claim of King’s participation in a sexual assault on this tenuous, handwritten notation. Particularly suspect is the description of King “look[ing] on”, given that the report was supposedly drawn from audio recordings only. | Amazingly, Garrow hangs his entire claim of King’s participation in a sexual assault on this tenuous, handwritten notation. Particularly suspect is the description of King “look[ing] on”, given that the report was supposedly drawn from audio recordings only. |
| Garrow’s argument rests on a shaky evidentiary trail; we have no tangible proof of a recording, nor a transcript in the public record | Garrow’s argument rests on a shaky evidentiary trail; we have no tangible proof of a recording, nor a transcript in the public record |
| Garrow’s argument rests on a shaky evidentiary trail; we have no tangible proof of a recording, nor a transcript in the public record. More importantly, there is no way to verify who edited the transcripts or when. William C Sullivan, the FBI official who directed the King surveillance, died in a hunting accident in 1977, and nearly all of the other figures in the report – including Kearse, who passed away in 1991 – are dead. | Garrow’s argument rests on a shaky evidentiary trail; we have no tangible proof of a recording, nor a transcript in the public record. More importantly, there is no way to verify who edited the transcripts or when. William C Sullivan, the FBI official who directed the King surveillance, died in a hunting accident in 1977, and nearly all of the other figures in the report – including Kearse, who passed away in 1991 – are dead. |
| Government intelligence documents should always be treated with great care – particularly documents from an era when J Edgar Hoover and the FBI expressed open hostility toward the civil rights movement. The FBI’s efforts to undermine King have been well-documented, and in one particularly shameful episode, Sullivan sent a collection of audiotapes to the King family with a letter encouraging King to kill himself. “No person can overcome facts, not even a fraud like yourself,” read the blackmail letter. “Lend your sexually psychotic ear to the enclosure. You will find yourself and in all your dirt, filth, evil and moronic talk exposed on the record for all time.” | Government intelligence documents should always be treated with great care – particularly documents from an era when J Edgar Hoover and the FBI expressed open hostility toward the civil rights movement. The FBI’s efforts to undermine King have been well-documented, and in one particularly shameful episode, Sullivan sent a collection of audiotapes to the King family with a letter encouraging King to kill himself. “No person can overcome facts, not even a fraud like yourself,” read the blackmail letter. “Lend your sexually psychotic ear to the enclosure. You will find yourself and in all your dirt, filth, evil and moronic talk exposed on the record for all time.” |
| A number of scholars have pushed back against Garrow’s essay. “It is deeply irresponsible for a historian to cast such FBI sources, which can be deeply unreliable, as fact,” Jeanne Theoharis, the author of the award-winning book The Rebellious Life of Mrs Rosa Parks, told the New York Times. “Most scholars I know would penalize graduate students for doing this.” | A number of scholars have pushed back against Garrow’s essay. “It is deeply irresponsible for a historian to cast such FBI sources, which can be deeply unreliable, as fact,” Jeanne Theoharis, the author of the award-winning book The Rebellious Life of Mrs Rosa Parks, told the New York Times. “Most scholars I know would penalize graduate students for doing this.” |
| A growing chorus of experts in 20th-century American history, including the professors Barbara Ransby of the University of Illinois at Chicago, NDB Connolly of Johns Hopkins and Glenda Gilmore of Yale, have joined Theoharis in expressing similar reservations. The multiple layers of tenuous and likely biased materials between Garrow and the events he describes are impossibly compromised, one prominent historian told me: Garrow’s alleged proof is “an after-the-fact notation on a summary of a transcript of a recording that has never been made available to researchers”. | A growing chorus of experts in 20th-century American history, including the professors Barbara Ransby of the University of Illinois at Chicago, NDB Connolly of Johns Hopkins and Glenda Gilmore of Yale, have joined Theoharis in expressing similar reservations. The multiple layers of tenuous and likely biased materials between Garrow and the events he describes are impossibly compromised, one prominent historian told me: Garrow’s alleged proof is “an after-the-fact notation on a summary of a transcript of a recording that has never been made available to researchers”. |
| This is not the first time that scholars have raised concerns about Garrow’s use of intelligence sources. Thirty-one years ago, in a review of Garrow’s book Bearing the Cross: Martin Luther King Jr, and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, the director of Stanford’s Martin Luther King Jr Papers Project, Dr Clayborne Carson, wrote: “Garrow’s reliance on FBI documents contributes to this emphasis on sub rosa happenings, for he, like many scholars who acquire previously secret documents, seems at times to assume that what has been hidden from view is more plausible than what has been publicly revealed.” | This is not the first time that scholars have raised concerns about Garrow’s use of intelligence sources. Thirty-one years ago, in a review of Garrow’s book Bearing the Cross: Martin Luther King Jr, and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, the director of Stanford’s Martin Luther King Jr Papers Project, Dr Clayborne Carson, wrote: “Garrow’s reliance on FBI documents contributes to this emphasis on sub rosa happenings, for he, like many scholars who acquire previously secret documents, seems at times to assume that what has been hidden from view is more plausible than what has been publicly revealed.” |
| Despite “the fact that FBI surveillance reports were efforts to provide information that agents knew Hoover wanted”, Carson added, Garrow, in Bearing the Cross, “uncritically uses these documents to validate many aspects of the FBI’s unfavorable image of King”. | Despite “the fact that FBI surveillance reports were efforts to provide information that agents knew Hoover wanted”, Carson added, Garrow, in Bearing the Cross, “uncritically uses these documents to validate many aspects of the FBI’s unfavorable image of King”. |
| There’s another puzzling question about the allegation against King. As Clarence B Jones, King’s longtime lawyer, has asked: if incontrovertible proof existed of King’s involvement in a rape, why did America’s top law enforcement officers not jump on the opportunity to prosecute a man they considered an enemy of the state? Both Hoover’s and Sullivan’s personal hatred for King and the larger black freedom struggle has been well documented by several generations of scholars and reporters. Hoover publicly derided King as “the most notorious liar in the country”; Sullivan considered King “the most dangerous Negro of the future in this nation”. | There’s another puzzling question about the allegation against King. As Clarence B Jones, King’s longtime lawyer, has asked: if incontrovertible proof existed of King’s involvement in a rape, why did America’s top law enforcement officers not jump on the opportunity to prosecute a man they considered an enemy of the state? Both Hoover’s and Sullivan’s personal hatred for King and the larger black freedom struggle has been well documented by several generations of scholars and reporters. Hoover publicly derided King as “the most notorious liar in the country”; Sullivan considered King “the most dangerous Negro of the future in this nation”. |
| At the very least, the government could have called King as a material witness in the prosecution of Kearse; that alone would have irreparably damaged King’s reputation and tied him up in years of legal red tape. It strains credulity that government officials would have foregone such a rich opportunity to embarrass King and neutralize the civil rights movement. | At the very least, the government could have called King as a material witness in the prosecution of Kearse; that alone would have irreparably damaged King’s reputation and tied him up in years of legal red tape. It strains credulity that government officials would have foregone such a rich opportunity to embarrass King and neutralize the civil rights movement. |
| The records in question are scheduled to be unsealed in 2027. Until then, we must evaluate Garrow’s claims with healthy skepticism. | The records in question are scheduled to be unsealed in 2027. Until then, we must evaluate Garrow’s claims with healthy skepticism. |
| In the meantime, it is worth thinking about what lessons can be drawn from the larger historical debate. The most obvious is the importance of responsibly using state sources, particularly those from law enforcement and intelligence agencies that may be actively involved in shaping the events they purport to represent. Given the vast expansion of policing, incarceration and surveillance in the US over the past half century, this concern extends well beyond the particulars of Garrow’s claims. | In the meantime, it is worth thinking about what lessons can be drawn from the larger historical debate. The most obvious is the importance of responsibly using state sources, particularly those from law enforcement and intelligence agencies that may be actively involved in shaping the events they purport to represent. Given the vast expansion of policing, incarceration and surveillance in the US over the past half century, this concern extends well beyond the particulars of Garrow’s claims. |
| Another issue is how we understand and conceptualize history. In many respects, Garrow is of an earlier generation of historians who viewed history as a narrative march of “great men”. This interpretation of history is Janus-faced, however, because what can be constructed as great can just as easily be torn down. In recent years much of the historical profession has moved away from this kind of top-down, “Whiggish” history and toward a broader democratic vision of the American past that resurrects the contributions and voices of those too often lost to public memory. | Another issue is how we understand and conceptualize history. In many respects, Garrow is of an earlier generation of historians who viewed history as a narrative march of “great men”. This interpretation of history is Janus-faced, however, because what can be constructed as great can just as easily be torn down. In recent years much of the historical profession has moved away from this kind of top-down, “Whiggish” history and toward a broader democratic vision of the American past that resurrects the contributions and voices of those too often lost to public memory. |
| Finally, we would be remiss not to reflect on the power of language. The detailed, almost pornographic descriptions of King in Garrow’s piece raise the specter of one of the most painful truths of African American history: the ways in which black political aspiration has been repeatedly defined as sexual threat. Be it the myth of the black rapist which rationalized white supremacist terror in the south after Reconstruction, or the FBI’s campaign to discredit the one of the country’s most transformative social movements by branding its leader a “sexual deviant”, this kind of prurience has enormous political power and consequences. | Finally, we would be remiss not to reflect on the power of language. The detailed, almost pornographic descriptions of King in Garrow’s piece raise the specter of one of the most painful truths of African American history: the ways in which black political aspiration has been repeatedly defined as sexual threat. Be it the myth of the black rapist which rationalized white supremacist terror in the south after Reconstruction, or the FBI’s campaign to discredit the one of the country’s most transformative social movements by branding its leader a “sexual deviant”, this kind of prurience has enormous political power and consequences. |
| It is incumbent on us as historians not only to be self-conscious about the sources we choose, but also of the ways in which we render their content. | It is incumbent on us as historians not only to be self-conscious about the sources we choose, but also of the ways in which we render their content. |
| Donna Murch is associate professor of history at Rutgers University and author of the prize-winning book Living for the City: Migration, Education and the Rise of the Black Panther Party in Oakland, California | Donna Murch is associate professor of history at Rutgers University and author of the prize-winning book Living for the City: Migration, Education and the Rise of the Black Panther Party in Oakland, California |
| Donna Murch is associate professor of history at Rutgers University and author of the prize-winning book Living for the City: Migration, Education and the Rise of the Black Panther Party in Oakland, California | Donna Murch is associate professor of history at Rutgers University and author of the prize-winning book Living for the City: Migration, Education and the Rise of the Black Panther Party in Oakland, California |
| Martin Luther King | Martin Luther King |
| Opinion | Opinion |
| Civil rights movement | Civil rights movement |
| History | History |
| comment | comment |
| Share on Facebook | Share on Facebook |
| Share on Twitter | Share on Twitter |
| Share via Email | Share via Email |
| Share on LinkedIn | Share on LinkedIn |
| Share on Pinterest | Share on Pinterest |
| Share on WhatsApp | Share on WhatsApp |
| Share on Messenger | Share on Messenger |
| Reuse this content | Reuse this content |
Previous version
1
Next version