If the tabloids had been around in his day, 'Dr' Martin Luther King would be in big trouble

Martin Luther King was a hero but he was certainly no saint. If 
he'd had to face aggressive tabloids and gossip websites, his 
career would have been destroyed – as, of course, would John F 
Kennedy's.

Let's begin with the real career-killer: he plagiarised his 
doctoral thesis from Boston University. This very useful post on 
snopes.com about the Martin Luther King scandals does a good job 
of separating myth from reality, and the plagiarism is proven. 
The following is from The New York Times in 1991:

A committee of scholars appointed by Boston University concluded 
today that the Rev Martin Luther King Jr plagiarized passages in 
his dissertation for a doctoral degree at the university 36 
years ago.

"There is no question," the committee said in a report to the 
university's provost, "but that Dr King plagiarized in the 
dissertation by appropriating material from sources not 
explicitly credited in notes, or mistakenly credited, or 
credited generally and at some distance in the text from a close 
paraphrase or verbatim quotation."

Despite its finding, the committee said that "no thought should 
be given to the revocation of Dr King's doctoral degree," an 
action that the panel said would serve no purpose.

But the committee did recommend that a letter stating its 
finding be placed with the official copy of Dr King's 
dissertation in the university's library.

You may not be surprised to learn that the story of King's 
plagiarism was around for a long time before the American press 
deigned to touch it – but when his old university found him 
retrospectively guilty the story could hardly be ignored. 
Needless to say, BU didn't take away his doctorate, as it would 
have in almost any other similar case.

Then there's King's womanising, not quite as pathological as 
JFK's but still – even according to some of his friends – pretty 
vigorous. Civil rights activist Ralph Abernathy, who was with 
him when he was murdered, was explicit on the subject in his 
autobiography. As People magazine reported in 1989:

Abernathy's damning charge is that King spent the last night of 
his life enjoying two successive extramarital liaisons, followed 
by a knockdown motel-room fight with a third woman.

Abernathy caused huge offence with his claim – but he replied by 
saying that he was keen to dispel myths about King. Yes, he had 
a voracious sexual appetite; but no, he did not have a taste for 
white prostitutes, as his enemies alleged. Those enemies 
included Jackie Kennedy, as the Daily Mail reported in 2011:

Jackie Kennedy hated Martin Luther King so much she could barely 
look at photographs of him.

In interviews taped in 1964 but only just released, she said the 
black civil rights leader was a "terrible man" and a "phoney".

She claimed King bragged of being drunk at her husband John F 
Kennedy’s funeral and had been caught trying to set up an orgy.

Mrs Kennedy said her view of King was formed after being told 
[by Robert Kennedy] of secret FBI wiretaps which showed him 
trying to organise a sex party before he attended the March on 
Washington in August 1963, at which he delivered his "I Have a 
Dream" speech.

As I say, Martin Luther King was a hero. We shouldn't remember 
him for cheating on his doctorate and his wife. But it's worth 
noting: if he'd been a famous white Republican, his reputation 
would have been comprehensively trashed by historians and the 
media.

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/damianthompson/100232872/if-
the-tabloids-had-been-around-in-his-day-dr-martin-luther-king-
would-be-in-big-trouble/
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