Monday was Martin Luther King Jr. Day, a peculiar holiday. On the one hand, the day celebrates the life of a civil rights icon who was one of the few people to change the United States for the better. On the other hand, the U.S. government created the holiday to promote a sanitized version of Dr. King that omits crucial parts of his message. By ignoring King’s class advocacy, anti-imperialist critiques, and economic issues, the government has sanded the round peg of MLK down to fit into the square hole of what I call the A.P. History worldview: the United States is The Best Country Ever and any problems can be solved by politely working in the established political system.
As I’ve written previously, this whitewashed view of MLK was purposely constructed by the political and media establishment. For example, the quote attributed to MLK in which he said Malcolm X was doing a “disservice to Black people” was entirely false. A Playboy reporter made it up, then repeated it to the point it became fact. In reality, MLK disagreed with X’s advocacy of armed self-defense but shared his critiques that economic injustice and American imperialism could not be separated from the struggle for Black freedom. He also encouraged his followers to keep an open mind and agreed his path to Black liberation wasn’t the only one.
While there’s no shortage of MLK quotes and speeches highlighting the ocean-sized delta between the real Martin Luther King Jr. and the government’s propagandized version, nothing shatters the state-sponsored image like the victorious King family lawsuit alleging their father was the victim of criminal conspiracy.
The global network of capital essentially functions
To separate the worker from the means of production.
And the FBI killed Martin Luther King
Private property's inherently theft
And neoliberal fascists are destroying the left
And every politician, every cop on the street
Protects the interests of the pedophilic corporate elite.”
- “That’s How The World Works,” Bo Burham,
King Family v. Jowers and Other Unknown Co-Conspirators
“The government killed Martin Luther King” sounds like something you’d find carved into the door of a shopping mall bathroom stall. I wish this statement could be written off as a tin-foil-hat delusion, but the U.S. justice system says otherwise.
In 1999, after decades of suspicion that the official story of MLK’s murder was bogus, the King family filed a civil lawsuit arguing there was a vast conspiracy to kill their father. The defendant was Lloyd Jowers, the owner of Jim’s Grill, a restaurant across the street from the Lorraine Motel where King was shot. Six years earlier, Jowers had told a reporter he’d paid MLK’s killer as a favor to a mob boss, but the shooter was not James Earl Ray, who’d been convicted of the crime. Jowers claimed he, along with a mafioso, Memphis police officers, and a man named “Raoul” coordinated the assassination.

According to the King family lawyers, the mafia and the federal government conspired to silence King’s criticism of the Vietnam War (something no one doubts the government wanted) and stop King’s upcoming Poor People’s March on Washington. Interestingly, Jowers’ legal team did not deny this. They admitted there was a conspiracy to kill King but that their client’s involvement was “minor” and not enough to conclude he was at fault.
After three hours of deliberation, the half-White, half-Black jury returned a verdict for the plaintiffs. They concluded there was a conspiracy to kill Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., which Lloyd Jowers had participated in. The King family was awarded $100 in damages. As evidenced by the small sum, the Kings never wanted money, only validation.1
"It's been painful and also has been bittersweet. Bitter because of the tragedy, obviously, but liberating in the sense and sweet that we have been vindicated and ultimately that the significance of this historical verdict that rewrites history is liberating.” — Dexter King, MLK’s son, following the trial.
But Loyd Jowers isn’t the only one who doubts the official story.
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