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Martin Luther King, Jr. Public Domain photo
Martin Luther King's birthday celebrations should probably acknowledge the unpleasant reality of his marital infidelity so that the criminal behavior of the Federal Bureau of Investigation against King can be remembered and discussed.
J. Edgar Hoover, FBI director during all of King's adult life, took a growing interest in King as the young minister gained popularity.
The warrantless surveillance of King started with phone taps and grew to include trespass and burglaries to install secret listening devices under King's hotel beds. Informers were also employed as well as direct surveillance by FBI teams.
The agent tasked with spearheading the logistics of the operation was William Cornelius Sullivan of the Domestic Intelligence Division. Sullivan, ambitious and motivated by animus against King, approached his job with enthusiasm as did Sullivan's assistant, Charles D. "Chick" Brennan.
Sullivan once told an interviewer that
As evidence accumulated about King's infidelity Sullivan had a compilation tape made of some of the bedroom activities. Sullivan would later downplay his role in the escapade and claim evidence found in his office file cabinet was planted. Mark Felt dismissed Sullivan's denial and wrote in his autobiography "the project was Sullivan's brainchild".
The tape was played for members of Congress, supervisory personnel of the FBI, the President, Attorney General and dozens of reporters. Members of the clergy and even some of King's associates were given listening sessions. Sullivan had a copy of the sex tape made and sent to King from
Sullivan's tape sat unopened for two months in a pile of mail. In January 1965 Coretta Scott King opened the package and listened to the tape. Author David Garrow describes the unhappy scene in his book The FBI and Martin Luther King, Jr.
"The Bureau's package had arrived at SCLC headquarters even before King met Hoover, but the box, obviously containing a reel of tape, was placed unopened with other similar packages….Such parcels sent to the SCLC office were put aside for transfer to the King home, where Coretta cataloged them. Apparently on January 5th Mrs. King stumbled upon this tape of a different sort, listened to a brief portion of it, discovered the accompanying letter, and then called her husband."
TOMORROW: Sullivan's letter encouraging King to commit suicide.
Special Report: Inauguration Day 2009
Comments
i love martin luther king jr.!
Sex, sex and sex, it's on everyone's mind, they are probably more sex laws than there are for driving a car, everyone condemns it everyone officially hates it yet everyone does it. Cheating spouses while unacceptable is resorted to by a majority and be decried by the same. On the other hand the State does not like outsiders rocking the boat trying to change our society with crazy ideas like equality for blacks what's next? Same sex marriage maybe? So the State targets these leaders and build files on them so just in case they may be able to blackmail these people or ruin their lives and sex was a great tool and still is. This is not particular of the United States, it happens in every western democracies. Remember the Profumo sex scandal in the U.K. in the sixties? Even if MLK had kinfy sex would that have made him a lesser man that he was? I doubt it and it is us the people who have to learn to accept sex for the profoundly humane act it is.
Madoff and $50 billions not so much about it, but Bill and Monica was the front page week after week.
MLK'a Christian character and ministry of the Gospel s called into question when his infidelities are discussed. Hypocrite becomes the new moniker. I guess it is easily justified, at least in his own mind and probably in the lives of those who hole him in high esteem: if it were permissible for the likes of King, then it is probably al right for me also. Jimmy Swaggert, Jim Baker, Bill Clinton, JFK, Bob Tilton, and the list goes on. Like one blogger above said, they all do it. Great men all, yes, but unfaithful to those to whom they gave their vows; and we think they will be faithful once in public office?
first of all whom ever wrote this should really get a life...I mean think about it, who really cares what King did in his personal life? You accuse this one black man of infidelity but there were far more serious CRIMES that were being committed by a whole race of whites.How in the hell does King's alleged infidelity overshadow the major things that were affecting society back then? ugh you people get on my nerves. Let this man rest in peace and leave him alone he is not here to defend himself.....
Yeah, big surprise. Preachers are nothing but pimps and crooks.
Can't be, next you'll tell me musical directors are gay or 55 year old, never married boy scout leaders like boys in an illegal way.
Preachers are always moving away out of nowhere. More like dumped on someone else's community (very christian) with a good reference if they'll just leave. Then repeat.
"Character is what you are in the dark!" - D.L. Moody "For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God" - Romans 3:23
First of all, to me the source is incredibly suspect. I mean, J Edgar, come on! The guy was twisted himself. And how kinky was it that he and the FBI bugged MLK's private life trying to prove he was a communist? Seriously? And we listen to that source?! Get a subscription to the Enquirer for your news then!
Secondly, maybe he was guilty of adultery. But listen to one of his last sermons: "Unfulfilled Dreams" and see how he felt about his own personal performance as a Christian. He was flawed as are all of us, and he knew it, but wanted to be a "better man."
Thirdly, everyone judging and condemning MLK for his alleged mistakes are all hypocrites yourselves. If someone bugged your life and logged your every action and word, you wouldn't be in the same universe of morality as this great man. Get off your high horse or you might just fall off and hurt yourself someday!
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