SINNERS AND MONUMENTS…
2-7-13
Jesus the Christ is the only perfect Person. Without exception, every other man who has ever lived is a sinner. The universal sinfulness of all men being true, when we build monuments to men are we building monuments to remember a man’s noble deeds and good works OR DO WE BUILD MONUMENTS TO MEN TO COMMEMORATE AND HONOR THEIR GOOD WORKS AND THEIR SINS?
For example, on City of Selma property (the city right of way) in front of Brown Chapel AME Church, there is a monument to remember Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Was that monument placed there to commemorate his good deeds or was it placed there to honor his good deeds and his sins?
Of the sins of Dr. King, the New York Times best selling author of Killing Kennedy, O‘Reilly recounts a meeting between President John Kennedy, himself a notorious womanizer, and Dr. King in the White House Rose Garden on June 22, 1963. During this meeting, the President tells King to be smart and control his libido. Quoting verbatim from Killing Kennedy (pages 179-181):
“And then there is Martin Luther King Jr’s womanizing. The fact is
well known throughout the civil rights movement. King spends the
majority of each month away from his home and from his wife, Coretta,
who knows not to question him about his faithfulness. According to FBI
surveillance and the admissions of his good friend Ralph Abernathy,
King has sex with prostitutes, hangers-on and even other men’s wives.
When pressed by friends, he does not deny the indiscretions, explaining
that he needs sex to curb his anxiety during intense times when is very lonely.
Because FBI Director Hoover believes King is a communist, the FBI has
been tapping King’s phones and bugging his motel rooms for a year and a
half. The FBI chief describes the civil rights leader as a “tomcat with
obsessive degenerate sexual urges. The President and Attorney General are
both informed of what is being recorded. Jackie Kennedy, who thinks King
is a phony, will later remember her husband confiding the contents of a tape
recording in which King “was calling up all these girls and arranging for a
party of men and women, I mean, sort of an orgy in the hotel and everything.
The most infamous King recording will take place on January 6, 1964 at
Washington D. C.’s Willard Hotel. As recounted in Taylor Branch’s Pillar of Fire,
King is caught on tape saying, “I’m having sex for God. I’m not a negro tonight”.
“I assume you know you’re under very close surveillance” the President tells King.
King laughs off the warning. JFK can be vague, but now he is painfully direct.
There can be no mistake. King must sever his ties with Communists and be
cautious about his infidelities.“
“You must be careful not to lose your cause, “the President warns…”be careful”
Although Dr. King was an adulterous womanizer (a sinner), there is a monument to him in Selma on city property on a street named in his honor. But the monument was not erected to honor him because of his sins or to honor and commemorate his sins, but to remember what he did good. Surely every person of good will, white and black, will agree that the monument was erected not to honor his sins, but to remember his heroic deeds.
That being true of a sinner such as Dr. King, why isn’t it also be true of another sinner--General Nathan Bedford Forrest??
