JS gets right down to it. Between beers, that is (thanks for the offer, JS!).

Are you serious about Dr. King? I mean about his adultery? I thought the case was a slam dunk that he was a serious womanizer.

Otherwise, I thought the Dr. King post was very good and related, I love your blog (Jonathan Last turned me onto you guys).

Marcus Epstein sure thinks so.

But the shocking claim about Dr. King’s adultery comes not from Dr. King, but from Ralph David Abernathy in his 1989 autobiography And the Walls Came Tumbling Down. Abernathy was a close friend and associate of Dr. King during the critical times. Therein, Abernathy describes in some shocking detail King’s alleged sexcapades with a variety of women, mentioning the FBI caught it all on tape.

However, two persistent facts remain: first, none of the massive entourage that surrounded King ever reported this. Not so much the heated denial, but the almost indifferent disbelief from all those involved. No one has come forward, and no one has substantiated the claims. Second, the FBI tapes released seem to point in a variety of directions. There is a lot of loose talk, some questionable moments, and so on, but nothing remotely…shall we say…pornographic taking place.

And note the timing of Abernathy’s book. 1989 was a point in time when folk on the right were advocating a national holiday to commemorate Dr. King [see a correction to this here], while lots of folks on the left were opposing it. At the same time, you will recall, people like Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson were falling well away from the original message of Dr. King and starting to really play the entitlement-or-racism game. What a curious time for a book to be released that attempted to portray Dr. King as someone far from the family man he purported to be.

Was King an adulterer? The Czar would say maybe…but dismissed for lack of evidence.

Thanks for loving our blog, though! And thanks again to JV Last, who seems to direct a lot of intelligent people our way.

The Czar of Muscovy

Божію Поспѣшествующею Милостію Мы, Дима Грозный Императоръ и Самодержецъ Всероссiйскiй, цѣсарь Московскiй. The Czar was born in the steppes of Russia in 1267, and was cheated out of total control of all Russia upon the death of Boris Mikhailovich, who replaced Alexander Yaroslav Nevsky in 1263. However, in 1283, our Czar was passed over due to a clerical error and the rule of all Russia went to his second cousin Daniil (Даниил Александрович), whom Czar still resents. As a half-hearted apology, the Czar was awarded control over Muscovy, inconveniently located 5,000 miles away just outside Chicago. He now spends his time seething about this and writing about other stuff that bothers him.