MLK: "Everyday I'm Hustlin'"

Did you hear the one about the pastor-turned-civil-rights-leader who was a sex-crazed, hustling phony?  Yea, it sounds more like the first part of a joke so corny, Jay Leno wouldn't even touch it.

But, that's apparently what Jacqueline Kennedy thought of Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.  In conversations she had with friends and interviewers months after her husband, President John F. Kennedy's assassination, she revealed that she believed King was a phony and vile man.

What is more, it appears that FBI director J. Edgar Hoover, shared surveillance with Jacqueline Kennedy--wire taped conversations purportedly of King laughing about the Kennedy assassination and calling women and men when he came to the Washington D.C. area for orgies.  The actual surveillance is currently protected by court order and will not be released to the public for at least another 15 years.

Really?  Dr. King had "jump offs" in the Washington D.C. area?  If you've been to the D.C. area, you know that's probably not very difficult to believe on many levels.  In D.C., everyone has disciples and King is more charismatic than most.

And, we've heard all of this talk before and we've had some thoughtful and pointed discussions about all of this several years back when Ice Cube released his movie "Barbershop."

So, even if all of this is true, does this tarnish King's legacy?

For me, it doesn't.  It seems to me that we don't give ministers, pastors, clergy or people who are otherwise called to change the world, the space to be human.  While these people have made and are called to make great contributions to the world, they are, after all, working out their own salvation just like the rest of us.  I expect a certain amount of humanness from all humans, even the great ones.  Our trust and faith should be in Spirit, rather than in humans who can't help but fail each other on occasion.

So what if Mother Teresa was so disillusioned by the poverty she saw in her missions that she doubted the existence of God in letters?  Does it really matter that Abraham Lincoln's reasons for calling for an end of slavery had more to do with his desire a unified America than for equality?  Who cares if Lady Gaga has ulterior motives for giving a voice to communities that are marginalized and sometimes ignored?  And, what if King was a hustler who had jump offs?

That doesn't change the good they breathed into the universe.  That doesn't change a thing...at least not for me.

Now, let me know when Jon Huntsman gets a Nirvana quote right so we can start talking about some real issues.