MLK 50!

Back in 2014, I went to Memphis for a family reunion. I had an opportunity to visit the Lorraine Hotel, now commonly known as the National Civil Rights Museum.

It was the place where Martin Luther King, Jr. on his way to a speech on the Memphis sanitation stirke was gunned down on the second floor of the hotel 50 years ago.

King who was considered a pioneer was assassinated by James Earl Ray.

The museum will be honoring King today.

Martin Luther King III, Yolanda King, Dexter King, Jesse Jackson, Mark Thompson, Dr. Ben Chavis, Joe Madison, William Barber, DNC chairman Tom Perez and others descend to Memphis to honor MLK 50: A Look Back At History and Activism.

King, a historical figure in the Civil Rights Movement was not this hero of modern times. If he was alive today, he would be regarded as an enemy by many of the same figures who vilified DeRay McKesson, Colin Kaepernick, Shaun King, Emma Gonzalez, Cameron Kasky, Sarah Chadwick and David Hogg.

Don't be fooled. If there was a Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, The Drudge Report, and an older Donald J. Trump, King would be vilified as a race hustler, Communist and outside agitator.

Martin Luther King, Jr. and Coretta Scott King.

White people hated him with a passion.

We were fed this nonsense about how King rose up from the ashes and told folks to gather to Washington to demand White and Blacks to get along.

That was not the case. King had faced opposition from all angles. There were Black leaders who were no on his side. Lawmakers who wanted his ass locked up for ruling up race relations. Companies that refused to serve him and his allies out of fear of vigilantes attacking the. They were fearful of retailiation. The King family was threatened daily by white extremists, conservative agitators and J. Edgar Hoover.

Hoover tried to plant evidence on King and worried that he was mounting an armed revolution.

Some even believe his assassination was government kookspiracy.

King was supportive of Lyndon B. Johnson during the passage of the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Act. That turned sour when Johnson decided to ample up pressure for war engagement in Vietnam.

Johnson had said that King was a threat.

Trust me, Malcolm X thought King was the embodiment of white guilt and white liberals who needed need a Black face.

All the symbolic themes won't matter. The name recognition on schools, roads and buildings won't matter.

King's legacy was messy. I mean they were calling him everything out the book. Now as we celebrate 50 years to the day of his death.

We look forward in the age of Trump. We will continue to fight for equality.

By the way, Memphis activist Jacqueline Smith is still there protesting against the city's forceful removal of her from the Lorraine Hotel. To this day, she vows to reclaim her home. She vows to protest gentrification of her area.