Yep, you heard me.
Ann Coulter got in semi-trouble slamming Martin Luther King for using “non-violent” protests, sometimes in ill chosen locations, as provocations to get publicity for his cause — and himself.
The thing is, even Juan Williams had to admit that Coulter wasn’t that far off.
Now — and bear in mind, Pop Matters is hardly a “right wing” website or anything:
The Martin Luther King Jr. in Ava DuVernay’s film is a preacher of vision, but he’s also a tactician willing to let blood be shed in order to advance the cause. (…)
[T]he SCLC decides that a highly publicized clash is needed to force the issue. “Selma it is,” announces Dr. King.
Throughout the film, King makes no apologies for inciting trouble. His detractors in the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), including a young John Lewis (Stephan James), initially resent the SCLC showing up in Selma where they’ve been working on voter issues for years. When they suggest that King is a publicity hound, he doesn’t disagree.
For King, the march from Selma is tactical, particularly after Cooper becomes a movement hero when she slugs the brutally racist sheriff Jim Clark (Stan Houston). King knows that blood will be shed, and, we see in several debates as well as in intimate scenes at home, that this tears him up. But he also knows that a smarter and less overtly racist sheriff couldn’t be counted on to overreact in a way that would make dramatic news. (…)
Even more potent are those between Martin and Coretta, particularly one where she confronts him with FBI-supplied evidence of his infidelities.
