Talk:Martin Luther King Jr.

Merger proposal- Plagiarism

Suggesting merging the separate plagiarism, page into the MLK main article. Assuming most traffic to the i am not gay from linking from the main page. Users searching for information unlikely to independently search for plagiarism article. Would serve Wikipedia to consolidate articles. Asserting that separate article not of sufficient independent weight to justify listing separately. Existing sections in plagiarism article would become subsections of plagiarism section in main article. Bsherr 01:45, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

Be boldDie4Dixie 08:14, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

But don't be confused about why separate articles such as this exist. The plagiarism itself is worthy of discussion and documentation, but we need to be careful about giving it undue weight within the main article; though there's a lot of talk about it, there's considerable disagreement here as to whether the plagiarism is particularly significant in the overall picture of the life and work of King. Subtopics are how we deal with that; that nobody would search for the particular title is not relevant, as (for example) a Google search for King + plagiarism would find the article immediately. (The next thing it would find is the Nazi-owned site, martinlutherking.org.) --jpgordon^∇∆∇∆ 15:42, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

Currently we have two editors who feel strongly against much mention of the plagiarism issue, one editor who feels that it should be mentioned and linked to at the time the degree is mentioned, and another who can't see what the fuss about mentioning it then would be.One who Googled King , not aware of the plagiarism issue to know to search for him and plagiarism together might not wade all the way through the article to find it.Die4Dixie 21:20, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

There is a long history of the plagiarism issue being used as a club with which to beat down King's entire lifework. With honorable exceptions on both flanks, the amount of emphasis put on this issue seems to roughly correlate with how much King and the civil rights movement are hated. --Orange Mike 21:26, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

Is this to much emphasis, or would this user and I both be haters of civil rights and King?:

" I think I'd have to agree with Die4Dixie here. The fact that plagiarism was found in his dissertation is relevant and can be mentioned in passing as soon as the degree is mentions. Something like:

In September 1951, King began doctoral studies in Systematic Theology at Boston University and received his Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) on June 5, 1955 (but see #Plagiarism for controversy regarding this degree).

Such a parenthetical remark would not, in my opinion, violate the undue weight principle. Phiwum 19:49, 23 September 2007 (UTC) "

My edit was made in good faith, the reasons are out lined above.I have no issue with King nor with civil rights. I don't see how candid acknowledgment of the controversy when the degree is mentioned detracts from his life's work; however, I do think obfuscating and hiding the controversy is a disservice to the truth. You seem to equate those who want to minimize his plagiarism with the only true lovers of civil rights, and those that want it to be discussed in a candid and frank manner as haters of King and civil rights. I reject your sweeping statement, and I categorically deny that I hate King or Civil Rights. Now do you feel that Phiwum's suggestion to be the hallmark of a hater of civil rights or do you now accuse me of bad faith in my edit? Or will you publicly assume good faith on both our parts, graciously put us into the "honorable exceptions" to your rule, or adjudicate that what I want added would not trigger the placement in either of your categories?Die4Dixie 23:28, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

1) I don't think the two should be merged. As jpgordon wrote, it is common practice to "spin" a section into a new article when the section becomes sufficiently long. As an example, see Conservative Judaism, which has led to Conservative Halakha (Conservative Judaism's approach to Jewish law) and Criticism of Conservative Judaism. Each of those articles has a brief summary in Conservative Judaism (Jewish law and Criticism) with a "Main article" link at the top. (Full disclosure: In April I proposed moving the "Criticism" article back into the main article. And I was told many of these same things.)

As it stands, this article is already 20 "screens" long on my monitor (that doesn't include the Notes, References, or External links sections). I'm not sure that the addition of 3 more "screens" about King's plagiarism would be helpful. To be honest, if I had the time I would create a few new articles about King and Vietnam, King's Chicago project, King and the FBI, and the King assassination and shorten this article considerably.

2) As I wrote in an earlier section, I think WP:Undue weight is an important consideration. Moving that material into this article gives King's plagiarism more emphasis in this article (based on text-length and "screens") than his Civil rights activism. I think this article is already out of balance (the assassination section is nearly as long as the civil rights section, and the King/FBI section half as long), but I don't think there's any good reason to go out of our way to make the plagiarism much longer. I think the current plagiarism paragraph should be a little more substantive, but I don't think it should be emphasized the way it would be if the two articles were merged.

3) The plagiarism article is not just about King's plagiarism but about the media's response to it and questions about whether King's (white) professors held him to a lower standard because he was Black. If the two articles were merged, I'm not sure that those sorts of issues would be appropriate in a biographical article about King — but they're entirely appropriate in an article about King's plagiarism. — Malik Shabazz (Talk | contribs) 00:18, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Wow, we actually agree on something. I really don't think merging would be the best for the articles for the reason of undue weight. I think the plagiarism section is poorly written and should be worked on bearing in mind all the things said. I still think that the degree being mentioned should link to the section on plagiarism, which is all I've really maintained all along. Nothing partisan, just my humble opinion. I was really burned up when I felt that there was a lack of assumption of good faith for my original edit. I had had very little experience editing at that point, and not much more now. This discussion has taught me a lot about Wikipedia. I do see that the way that I wanted to mention it would not have been the best way to do it; however, the proposal of Phywim seems to me to be logical. I really don't see how you can mention the degree and not at the same time link to the controversy. I don't think it is POV to acknowledge the controversy when the controversial item is mentioned.Die4Dixie 00:51, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Actually, I concur that Phiwun's suggestion is a sound one, and well thought-out. None of the haters has bothered to kick in on this discussion so far; there's certainly no evidence that Bsherr, you or Phiwum falls into that category. --Orange Mike 03:06, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

No, none at all. Assuming good faith is probably as hard on this article as in any on Wikipedia, because it's been subject to so much purely hateful attention. What we have going on here is a perfectly reasonable discussion on how best to present certain facts in an article. Maintaining the neutral point of view is tricky; "undue weight" isn't always easy to determine. --jpgordon^∇∆∇∆ 04:00, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

I've been mulling over Die4Dixie's comments and Phiwum's suggestion for a while, and I think is a good one. It's probably appropriate to give some mention of the controversy concerning the work that led to King's degree when we mention the degree, and I think Phiwum's wording does that without giving King's plagiarism undue weight. — Malik Shabazz (Talk | contribs) 04:12, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Excellent! Now we all wikilink cyberhands and sing "We Shall Overcome", right? All joking aside, I'm glad we've found a satisfactory way to handle this explosive topic. --Orange Mike 13:18, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Me too. It's good to see that everyone in this discussion was civil and assumed good faith, since, as has been said, this is often a divisive side issue to King's legacy. Phiwum 15:15, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

With the link in where it is, and the plagiarism issue having been brought up after his death, does the section need to appear on a page devoted to his biography? Perhaps the link could just go to the plagiarism/ authorship page? This would allow the reader to know that there is a controversy and if he is interested, he would be able to find it. Perhaps it could also then be linked from the See also links. What do you think, since this is not some thing that I have the experience to judge.02:45, 3 October 2007 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Die4Dixie (talk • contribs)

I don't have any particular opinion about moving the target for my link, but I suspect others may complain that sending the reader to another full article on the issue exaggerates its importance. I don't think there's any need to put it on the "see also" list. That seems like going overboard to make sure that no one misses the article, which is already mentioned in the text in a section devoted to the topic (and now there's an additional in-text link to that section). Putting yet another prominent link to the article seems just one step shy of using the blink tag wherever it is mentioned. Phiwum 11:35, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

I never thought about it like that, but I can see how that wouldn't work like I thought it might. I was talking about the removal of the whole subsection related to it on his page . My suggestion was one trying to reduce the amount of play that it was getting on his page. Thanks for showing me how it would have the opposite effect, which is not anything that I want. You're exactly right.Die4Dixie 16:27, 3 October 2007 (UTC)16:26, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

I'm concerned that while the undue weight consideration is an appealing one, the use of a subpage here could nonetheless be prohibited content forking. See Wikipedia:Content forking. While I'm not outright suggesting that it is indeed content forking--it seems to me that, in fact, there is a very thoughtful discussion taking place--it is helpful to bear this concept in mind when considering the alternative justification for the subpage--that the subpage is a spinout, as suggested in above discussion. Again, see Wikipedia:Content forking for description of spinouts. I would point out, however, that no other section seems to have been similarly treated (though, for example, the list of honorary degrees would readily qualify as a list subpage). Also, the subpage is not long, nor is the main MLK article, though this is a subjective measure. See Wikipedia: Article size. But I would point out that the King and FBI section is approximately the same length as the authorship issues subpage. I asked you to bear in mind my mention of content forking. I would suggest that the use of a subpage for the authorship issues, but not for the similarly sized FBI section, indicates that this may be closer to a content forking issue than not. If merging the subpage into the main article presents an undue weight concern, the best solution may be to lengthen the other secions of the MLK article, if anything. But I appreciate the discussion above! Thoughts? Bsherr 22:01, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Bsherr, I'm in the middle of midterms now, and can't participate fully in the process. When I'm finished, sometime next week, I'll review the issues and see. I am an inexperienced editor, so the other maybe able to offer more informed opinions at this point. Happy editing.Die4Dixie 16:04, 12 October 2007 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Die4Dixie (talk • contribs)

You have invoked "Political Correctness" in the "MLK authorship" section, therefore you cannot merge it with the main site. -dja —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.173.1.48 (talk) 19:46, 21 January 2008 (UTC) Looking through the revisions on plagiarism, there is constant and considerable change in content and form. From Animal Farm to white radio Evangelists to the amount detail on the I Have A Dream Speech to include . . . On and on. If it can't even be agree on what belongs in the plagiarism section, how can it be considered for merger with the main MLK article? It's not ready for primetime.

Merge proposal abandonment

• Although I’m a fairly experienced Wikipedia author, I’m a newcomer to this article as well as the “authorship issues”. I, for one, am pleased and impressed with the content of both articles. I found exactly what I hoped for at each article. I don’t favor the merge. I also note that the last signed comment on the proposal to merge was 12 Oct. 2001, which is 140 days ago. Accordingly, the merge proposal should be considered as abandoned.

  I might add these observations: I think the authorship issues article seemed factual and balanced. As such, it seems fair. I also believe that the size of authorship issues would be comparatively too great relative to the other sections of this article and therefore would be disproportionate treatment. I also find the 95-word stub currently here to be borderline too small—even considering that it directs to an expanded treatment elsewhere. Other than a modest increase in the size of the stub section, the current arrangement seems to be the most appropriate way of handling this.

  Again, given that there has been no activity by registered authors for 140 days, I’ve removed the merge tag for being an abandoned issue. I suggest that if the merge tag is added, that the issue be aggressively worked and resolved within 30 days or again be withdrawn. Greg L (my talk) 03:11, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

In light of rumors that are often spread attacking Martin Luther King (a la http://www.truthorfiction.com/rumors/m/mlk.htm) it seems like there should be a controversy section in this article that clarifies the accounts of plagiarism, adultery, and ties to the communist party (and his legal name, if anybody really cares). There is the section on plagiarism, but the truth about the other two allegations is hard to find tucked within the FBI section. 132.162.219.108 (talk) 17:58, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

Error in article

In the 'Civil rights activism' section, third paragraph, it mentions that King went to "alabama" to visit the Gandhi family. Aside from the non capitalisation, I rather suspect this should read "India", as is mentioned a few lines later. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.214.74.59 (talk) 02:19, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

• Just some everyday vandalism. Thanks! --jpgordon^∇∆∇∆ 04:36, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

Benjamin Mays delivered King's eulogy. The article states King delivered his own via pre-recorded.sermon

I don't know if this can be called an error, but I feel that under the 'Legacy' section, accusations of infidelity should be removed unless the author has a source to back it up. I hate to think of it causing negative ideas about MLK to brew in people's minds when we don't have any evidence. 99.227.222.213 (talk) 07:17, 6 March 2008 (UTC)Andrew Dawson

Semi-protected

I've semi-protected this for a week, due to the barrage of idiotic vandalism. --jpgordon^∇∆∇∆ 19:34, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

Another problem was the duplicity of the city leaders. Abernathy and King secured agreements on action to be taken, but this action was subverted after-the-fact by politicians within Mayor Richard J. Daley's corrupt machine.

that is an opinion —Preceding unsigned comment added by Tommyp1 (talk • contribs) 02:35, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

Why?

why does it say that Martin Luther King. Jr. is a leader of the American Animal Rights movement? I'm pretty sure he led some other movement... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 206.192.68.115 (talk) 19:55, December 1, 2007 (UTC)

That was the result of someone vandalizing the article. It was only there for sixty-five minutes, and the account responsible has been indefinitely blocked from editing, but we do need to keep a closer eye on things. — Satori Son 20:41, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

stormfrontery

Looks like we had a link to the Stormfront site sitting here for almost a month. It's not suitable for blacklisting, as it's not been spammed, but we need to be more careful patrolling the page for edits such as this one. --jpgordon^∇∆∇∆ 16:03, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

What exactly is wrong with the site referenced other than being controversial? Is there hard eveidence somewhere that this wasn't true?Commment (talk) 21:13, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

The site isn't just "controversial"; it's an attack site maintained by a group of neo-Nazis out to dirty King's reputation. --Orange Mike | Talk 21:37, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Agree. It's completely inappropriate for us to link to it. — Satori Son 22:46, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Saint

I readded the Saint infobox because Martin Luther King Jr. does have a memorial in the Episcopal Church in the United States of America (see references at the info box). This is the closest thing that Episcopal Church in the United States of America has two a canonization process and the Saints Portal on wikipedia says concerning the definition of a saint: "This portal covers saints recognized by at least one Christian denomination, either by being commemorated in their liturgical calendar or being recognized as a saint by one or more Christian churches." Unfortunately I will not be on the internet after today until after Jan. 20th, but given what I just said I don't think the info box should be controversial.Commment (talk) 21:22, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

To be frank, I'm dubious about this and was tempted to remove it, but there's no real harm in leaving it until Commment returns and provides additional supporting info. Cgingold (talk) 22:52, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Assassination

Unlike many other leading 20th century figures who were assassinated (JFK, RFK, Gandhi, Palme, Rabin, etc.), MLK does not have a separate article about his assassination. (see Category:assassinations). Especially considering the great length of this article, I think it would make a lot of sense to split off the existing section as a free-standing article, leaving behind a good summary, of course. I would hardly take such a major step without prior discussion, so I would like to know if there are any serious objections to doing this before I proceed. (Btw, I looked through all of the archived discussions to see if this had ever come up, but found no mention of it.) Cgingold (talk) 23:03, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

• Seems like a good idea to me. --jpgordon^∇∆∇∆ 01:42, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

I've created the article here - Martin Luther King, Jr. assassination. Remember (talk) 16:57, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

A user quickly redirected this page, but I put it back up. Please let me know if editors fell that this page should not exist on either this page or the assassination talk page. Remember (talk) 18:25, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

Probably because the new article appears to be simply a copy of the text in here, which is a maintenance problem. How about significantly shortening the section in this article? Rich257 (talk) 20:57, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

Agreed. I don't have time to do this now, but if someone else could I would greatly appreciate it. Remember (talk) 21:13, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

Footer created

I created a footer for King at Template:MLK Footer and you can see an example of it below. It is still a work in progress, but let me know what you think. Also feel free to revise it to make it better. Remember (talk) 21:12, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

• I think it looks pretty good! --Lquilter (talk) 23:39, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. (But others now have really improved it too). Remember (talk) 02:57, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Suspected vandalism

Under the header of Early Life -

"I understand our relastionsips. but i do not represent our lifestyles. i will not say that in life that colored ppl halfed different times. but i know that we willl have fun."

I am removing this immediately. 68.229.184.37 (talk) 10:41, 21 January 2008 (UTC) Never mind, somebody beat me to it. Nonetheless I suspect on today of all days this page may need to be protected. 68.229.184.37 (talk) 10:42, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

suggestion

I was wondering if the first sentence of the Montgomery Bus Boycott section ("In 1953, at age 24, King became pastor of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama.) should be moved to the Early Life section, where King's scholar achievements and such are mentioned. ---Anonimous Contributor —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.40.42.26 (talk) 03:28, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

Good suggestion. — Malik Shabazz (talk · contribs) 05:56, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

Native Americans

I Am doing my prject on Dr.Martin Luther King jr. Martin was Born in Atlanta,Georgia,usa.Date of birth was January 15 1929 and he died in apr 4 1968 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 209.91.11.176 (talk) 02:13, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

Suggestion for Booksection

In my opinion there is one book missing about Martin L. K., Jr by Coretta Scott King. Would someone, who has the rights of editing these article, be so nice and just adds the following line (after proofing the correctness):

My Live with Martin Luther King, Jr. by Coretta Scott King (1969)

Thanks a lot, Daniel from Austria --62.47.34.225 (talk) 22:25, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

Good suggestion. — Malik Shabazz (talk · contribs) 00:11, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

Would someone, with the permission, be so nice and perform my suggested suggestion? I've no editing rights (Who ever knows why?) —88.117.47.90 (talk) 17:21, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

I added it a few days ago: see Martin Luther King, Jr.#References. — Malik Shabazz (talk · contribs) 23:11, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

Sorry Malik, I was always just looking for the book section and not for reference, my mistake. --88.117.106.3 (talk) 23:13, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

Plagiarism

The entire "Awards and recognition" section is plagiarized from http://www.thekingcenter.org/mlk/bio.html70.48.182.94 (talk) 20:12, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

• I'm not seeing the plagiarism; could you be more specific? Which text? --jpgordon^∇∆∇∆ 20:59, 3 March 2008 (UTC)
  • By "Awards and recognition" I meant the "Honorary degrees" section which is basically copy-pasted from the site other then the addition of the number 20 and putting his extended name.65.93.117.23 (talk) 22:43, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

"The Reverend", not just "Reverend"

I added "the" before Reverend when referring to people. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Laxmatt (talk • contribs) 06:12, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Assassination redundancy

The "Assassination" section here is verbatim the same as the article linked above it, "The Assassination of MLK Jr."

Since there is an article with the exact same information, and in fact the exact same wording, for the sake of brevity, why isn't this section removed or at least briefly summarized on this page, with the link to the detailed article? If not, why is there a separate article at all? I clicked the link hoping to find more detail, and found the linked article is merely the assassination section of this article copy/pasted whole-cloth. Even the updated material which has come to light is identical in both articles, which seems to indicate that the assassination article will not be expanded upon only, but that this page will grow as well. This destroys the reason to even have another article, which is keep the main article as to the point as possible. As it is now, it devolves into material that is repeated verbatim for a THIRD time on the James Earl Ray page, which does not directly even reference MLK's life and should not, in my opinion, be included on his bio page at all.

This page is long as it is. I would think the reason to have separate article pages is to lessen that length, while making tangential info readily available through links to the related articles.

If no one has more to add on this in the next few days, I'll attempt to summarize the assassination section here in ONE brief paragraph containing the most pertinent facts with a link referring those looking for more details to the main "Assassination of MLK" article.

I think the assassination merits is own article, and it will be expanded as more information becomes available. The assassination section on this page should be summarized concisely and much of the detailed information removed, as it is redundant to the stand alone assassination article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.100.167.23 (talk) 18:05, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

• Sounds good. --jpgordon^∇∆∇∆ 00:01, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

According to your article MLK accused Americans of killing millions of viets

This is Completely untrue. You are definitely playing around with the words here as if you read his speech he implicitly states they MAY have killed them. "So far we may have killed a million of them -- mostly children"

Better fix this cause for a second your biography caused me to view MLK as a baffoon that made exaggerating estimations to prove a point, which he DID NOT DO.

Toolong46 (talk) 00:53, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

• Provide us a source so we can correct this, please. -jpgordon^∇∆∇∆ 03:28, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Montgomery Bus Boycott

The part I'm concerned with reads.....(In March 1955, a 15-year-old school girl, Claudette Colvin, had to give up her seat, but King did not then become involved). Is this to mean he had not yet become involved? If so, I think it would read better if it said King had not yet become involved rather than did not then become involved. Does anyone agree? Pandagirlbeth (talk) 22:02, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

Upcoming TV Documentaries

There are at least two upcoming documentaries on MLK, History channel & CNN, can we point them out, we do point out when other notables, mainly actors, have movies coming out? Feedback? Pandagirlbeth (talk) 16:55, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

Communism

The section discussing MLK Jr.'s political philosophy reads:

King had read Marx while at Morehouse, but while he rejected "traditional capitalism," he also rejected Communism because of its "materialistic interpretation of history" that denied religion, its "ethical relativism," and its "political totalitarianism."[12]

But this is not a direct quote of King's, it is taken from a book written by Corretta. For the sake of balance and to avoid bias in favor of King, should it not read:

King had read Marx while at Morehouse, but while he rejected "traditional capitalism," [Coretta Scott King says] he rejected Communism because of its "materialistic interpretation of history" that denied religion, its "ethical relativism," and its "political totalitarianism."[12]

?

Or, if these quotes are directly from King himself, then it should say.

King had read Marx while at Morehouse, but while he rejected "traditional capitalism," [King claimed] that he rejected Communism because of its "materialistic interpretation of history" that denied religion, its "ethical relativism," and its "political totalitarianism."[12]

It is up to the reader to decide if King should be taken for his word or not.--91.89.129.200 (talk) 20:47, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

Influenced

Seriously, we need a "Influenced" heading for Martin Luther King? I'm sorry, but if the only people he influenced was his wife and Jesse Jackson, we're all screwed. 24.141.47.50 (talk) 01:51, 1 April 2008 (UTC)