55 years ago today - May 19, 1963

Ezra Taft Benson had identified Martin Luther King as a Communist.

[Source: "Benson Ties Rights Issue to Reds in Mormon Rift," Washington Post, 19 May 1963, E-l, E-7. Benson told BYU students that the American civil rights movement was "Communist inspired" and that its unnamed leader was a Communist sympathizer, if not an actual Communist. The publication of this talk identified King in the index as this Communist civil rights leader. See Benson, An Enemy Hath Done This, ed. Jerreld L. Newquist (Salt Lake City: Parliament Publishers, 1969), 310,361. From D. Michael Quinn, Ezra Taft Benson and Mormon Political Conflicts, Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 26:2 (Summer 1992), also in Quinn, The Mormon Hierarchy: Extensions of Power Salt Lake City (Signature Books, 1994), Chapter 3.]

No comments:

Post a Comment