What's up, guys?
For Complex News, I'm Frazier Tharpe.
On this Martin Luther King Day weekend, it's worth remembering that, while MLK may now
be a national hero, loved by all and with his own national holiday to prove it, his
efforts weren't nearly as universally celebrated when he was actually around the civil rights
leader was actually around.
King, and the civil rights movement as a whole, were—as most movements for social change
are—faced a lot of dispiriting criticism during their heyday, which is something worth
remembering the next time your racist co-worker starts loudly berating the Black Lives Matter
movement for being counter-productive.
This might seem surprising.
After all, the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 60s had world-beating victories—ending
public segregation, ensuring the right to vote, and much more.
And the people who stood against those shifts are now generally thought of as the worst
of the worst—vicious racists who would spit on and beat schoolchildren or sic dogs on
marchers.
But just look at the statistics.
In June, 1963—only a few months before the March on Washington where King would make
his famous "I Have a Dream" speech—Gallup did a poll asking, "Do you think mass demonstrations
by Negroes are more likely to help or more likely to hurt the Negro's cause for racial
equality?"
An overwhelming sixty percent of people said "hurt," while only 27 percent said "help."
And the March on Washington itself, now held up as an iconic and often-copied historical
moment?
That's right, people were against it at the time, too.
Sixty percent of people viewed it unfavorably, while only 23 percent were in favor.
Less surprising of course, given the era, is MLK himself was vastly unpopular among
white people.
In a December, 1966 poll, a full 50 percent of white people said that King was hurting,
rather than helping, the cause of civil rights.
Now compare these surveys to nearly identical numbers from August, 2017.
In a Harvard University poll, 57 percent of voters—and 65 percent of whites—said they
had a negative view of the Black Lives Matter movement.
On the flipside, public opinion among African-Americans was then, and is now, overwhelmingly in favor
of movements for racial justice.
Black Lives Matter had 81 percent support among African-Americans in a recent poll,
and black people overwhelmingly supported King—or wanted him to be more radical—during
his lifetime.
Most white people, on the other hand, just wanted the whole thing to stop.
And they still do: since the beginning of the BLM movement in 2014, when white people
overwhelmingly thought race got more attention than it deserved in the Michael Brown case,
they have consistently missed the point of what this incarnation of the civil rights
movement is about.
Movements for racial justice—in fact, movements for any kind of justice—generally become
universally popular only when they're in the rearview mirror.
Martin Luther King—pursued by the FBI, despised by a portion of the public, and ostracized
even within his own movement for his stands against war and imperialism—became, after
his assassination and after the movement he helped to lead made historic gains, an untouchable
icon, literally carved in stone in our nation's capitol.
But that's a fairly recent state of affairs.
In the not-that-long-ago 1980s, it was acceptable for a Senator to fulminate against the idea
of making King's birthday a national holiday because he was a "Marxist" who espoused
"radical" views.
In fact, many states did end-runs around acknowledging King's birthday even after it became a national
holiday.
Several Southern states combined King's celebration with Robert E. Lee's birthday,
in an incredibly obvious show of racist defiance.
It took until 2000 for King's birthday to be celebrated in all 50 states as its own
holiday.
It seems likely that the shift that we saw with MLK, where perceived radical goals become
common sense and generally accepted after they are accomplished, may well happen with
BLM and the struggle against racist police violence and state repression.
There's certain to be a day when "Black Lives Matter" becomes as iconic—and uncontroversial—a
statement as "I Have a Dream."
Let's hope we get there soon.
For Complex News, I'm Frazier Tharpe.
For more infomation >> Mark Wahlberg donará 1.5 millones de dólares al movimiento Time's up - Duration: 0:38. 
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