Who Doesn't Like MLK?

Although MLK Day is the third Monday of every January, I think that Dr. King deserves a little more focus than just that one day a year. These thoughts were sparked by a poll from Rasmussen Reports from January of 2008 that only 79% of polled people have a favorable opinion of King. Who are these people in the 21% that don't like him? Besides winning the 1964 Nobel Peace Prize, the guy did all kinds of awesome stuff. (Additionally, I've always been especially fond of the original Martin Luther and his 95 Theses. But maybe that's a different post.) Its like those folks who don't really care for my boy Abe Lincoln (me and Abe and Barack are from the same hood). Here's a quick history lesson and some information that's new to me about an MLK conspiracy and more current news related to his death. Just FYI.

We all know that James Earl Ray shot King at 6:01 p.m. April 4, 1968.

According to Wikipedia:

"In 1997, Martin Luther King's son Dexter King met with Ray, and publicly supported Ray's efforts to obtain a retrial. In 1999, Coretta Scott King, King's widow, along with the rest of King's family, won a wrongful death civil trial against Loyd Jowers and "other unknown co-conspirators". Jowers claimed to have received $100,000 to arrange King's assassination. The jury of six whites and six blacks found Jowers guilty and that "governmental agencies were parties" to the assassination plot. William F. Pepper represented the King family in the trial.

On April 6, 2002, the New York Times reported a church minister, Rev. Ronald Denton Wilson, claimed his father, Henry Clay Wilson—not James Earl Ray—assassinated Martin Luther King, Jr. He stated, 'It wasn't a racist thing; he thought Martin Luther King was connected with communism, and he wanted to get him out of the way.'"

Pretty strange huh? We all know that I could write a book about conspiracy theories, so I find this super interesting. Too bad that's already been done. Like, a million times. Go MLK!