I’m a big Martin Luther King guy from way back. He’s been a hero of mine since first grade. When a close relative got his nose bent out of shape a few years ago over my criticism of Colin Kaepernick, he brought up the huge MLK poster I had in my dorm room in college. So yeah, King and me, way back.

Which is why it pains me to have to take note of the fact that on the first MLK Day after this disturbing story broke last year, everyone is carrying on today as if the story never happened. I can understand people not wanting to mention it.

The key thing, though, is context. And therein lies a lesson for our friends on the Left. They need to understand history. And they need to understand that many heroes were very flawed men. We still celebrate Martin Luther King, Jr., despite his sins. We can still celebrate Columbus despite his.

All the Old Standards

The Wall Street Journal had your standard annual righty op-ed claiming King for our side. The AP had your standard annual Martin Luther King Day reminder that we’re supposed to hate the GOP. E.J. Dionne gave the standard lefty AP story the Obama-good/Trump-bad update that one might expect from him. And, like all good GOP White Houses, this one carried on as if the holiday hadn’t been weaponized against them.

Again, that is all same old, same old. But it should have been different this year.

One of the few things that holds America together, I think, are our holidays. The things we choose to honor as a nation. But our national heritage has been under assault in recent years by the Left. And the Left often aims their worst vitriol at our holidays.

Christopher Columbus’ sins are now supposed to outweigh his accomplishments. Likewise the Pilgrims on Thanksgiving. Even the 4th of July is no longer sacred. The nation’s real founding was supposedly 1619, with the arrival of the first slave in the Americas, we are now told.

That’s the Left for you. Give them a few more years and they will tell us the only thing we should discuss on Veterans Day is the My Lai Massacre.

But the recent revelations about King, should they prove true, ought to give our friends on the Left a chance to reconsider their assault on our national holidays.

The Truth Is

Because the truth is, history is messy. No one is entirely innocent. No one’s heroes are perfect.

The proper thing is to put things in context. Don’t ignore the bad, as people seem to be doing on this first MLK Day since that story broke. But look at the big picture.

Christopher Columbus, the Pilgrims, George Washington, the signers of the Declaration of Independence, Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King, the U.S. soldier, the Labor Movement. None of the great Americans whom we honor with holidays was perfect. The only man with a holiday on our calendar who was perfect was Jesus Christ.

The Left knows this when it comes to Dead White Males. But they must now grapple with the fact that it is also true of Martin Luther King, Jr., our nation’s greatest civil rights hero.

That doesn’t mean they should turn on King. It means they should put things in context. The good and the bad. Don’t excuse the bad. Don’t ignore the bad. But tell the whole story. The whole story of flawed and sinful men who still did great things.

And not just for King. Do it for Columbus, too. Do it for the Pilgrims and the Founders of our Republic. Tell every hero’s whole story.

Do it out of gratitude and a sense of pietas. Even though they were sinners. We owe all those great men, from Columbus to Martin Luther King, for the country we are privileged to live in today.

 

Peter Wolfgang is president of Family Institute of Connecticut Action. He lives in Waterbury, Conn., with his wife and their seven children. The views expressed on The Stream are solely his own.