The fantastic website Letters of Note recently shared the following post:
“In November of 1964, fearful of his connection to the Communist Party through Stanley Levison, the FBI anonymously sent Martin Luther King the following threatening letter, along with a cassette that contained the fruits of a 9 month surveillance project — allegedly incriminating audio recordings of King with women in various hotel rooms — headed by William C. Sullivan. A decade later, Sullivan told investigators that they had simply wanted King to resign from the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. King, on the other hand, had seen the letter as an invitation to take his own life.”
Read the letter and let me know what you think.
Despite his foibles (like King David, Soloman, and the multitudes of women and men in the Bible that blew it sexually yet still made an incredible impact on the lives of those around them), MLK was a prophet, reformer, preacher, and devoted man of God worth honoring today.
Especially when you consider what he endured to help so many…
Image courtesy of Paul Wolf.
Transcript
KING,
In view of your low grade… I will not dignify your name with either a Mr. or a Reverend or a Dr. And, your last name calls to mind only the type of King such as King Henry the VIII…
King, look into your heart. You know you are a complete fraud and a great liability to all of us Negroes. White people in this country have enough frauds of their own but I am sure they don’t have one at this time anywhere near your equal. You are no clergyman and you know it. I repeat you are a colossal fraud and an evil, vicious one at that. You could not believe in God… Clearly you don’t believe in any personal moral principles.
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