I Have A Nightmare...

MLK Day and the inversion of a legacy

Photo by Unseen Histories on Unsplash

Today is MLK Day. I don’t even have to type the full name. You already know who I mean. Martin Luther King, Jr. is an icon in American history, and like many icons, he gets the privilege of a single moniker.

Oprah.

Elon.

Obama.

MLK.

Some people are so influential, their legacy becomes their most identifying feature, and last names become superfluous. MLK’s legacy is undisputed. It has been one of the most effective legacies in American history, and also the most dangerous.

As I write this, mobs of paid rioters are roaming Minneapolis, invading churches, harassing customers in coffee shops, and taking over neighborhoods. The governments of both the state of Minnesota and the city of Minneapolis-St.Paul are in direct rebellion to the federal government, hiding under the guise of “protest culture.”

How do they know this is an effective strategy?

The legacy of MLK.

Protest culture as we know it was born in the 1960s. MLK used the mass mobilization of people to disrupt and demand. There was quite a bit of disagreement among leaders at the time regarding the use of violence within the movement. Entities like The Black Panthers chose to see the situation as war, requiring the black population to take up arms in what they saw as self-defense. The MLK wing, of course, felt non-violence was the most effective form of protest.

He was not wrong, as history testifies. His strategy was simple - force their oppressors to show their true colors to the world by daring them to meet peaceful resistance with violence. It turned the tables…and it worked.

It also spawned a whole new class of political activists - the Civil Rights Class.

Al Sharpton. Jesse Jackson. Maxine Waters. All of the Congressional Black Caucus, past and present. They are all disciples of the Civil Rights Class and they have pulled those valuable lessons from the days of MLK into our new era of angst. They are using the exact same techniques with a topsy-turvy application.

Like the MLK protestors, the rioters use “peaceful” protests. MLK’s people were, quite literally, protesting for their own human rights. Their goal was to secure liberty. The rioters pretend to be peaceful (sometimes even donning furry or inflatable Halloween costumes), but the goal is to create enough threat to provoke law enforcement into protecting themselves. Violence, not liberty, is the end game. The tactic is similar, but the goals are very different.

It’s an inversion.

The Color Guard Boomers weren’t complete idiots. They learned the lessons any toddler learns when their tantrums are rewarded - kicking and screaming gets you what you want. They moved into entertainment and universities and set about training the next generation of revolutionaries with their new-found influence. When those pesky, average Americans began to complain about left-wing absurdities, they went right back to the playbook, each time bringing a new generation of agitator interns with them.

Tawana Brawley. Los Angeles (take your pick of riots through the 80s, 90s and to this very day), Ferguson, BLM and the Summer o’ Love, George Floyd, and now, ICE - the list of violent protests is long and storied and a complete rehash of 1960s protest culture.

But this time, the goal isn’t liberty. The goal is destruction. The goal isn’t prosperity. The goal is destruction. The goal isn’t peace.

The goal is destruction.

MLK’s movement leaned heavily on Gospel principles and the Church, which has always been and remains a huge cultural force in the black American community. Yesterday, we saw disgraced former CNN host Don Lemon invade a Minneapolis church alongside anti-ICE rioters during a worship service. Mothers were forced to rush their children out the back, and congregants were trapped with screaming lunatics while Lemon stuck his microphone in the confused pastor’s face for comment.

MLK’s movement hallowed the church. The clergy were the movement leaders and despite what some people like Al Sharpton have become, they never would have allowed the house of the Lord to be desecrated in the name of revolution.

It’s an inversion.

There is an argument to be made that this is the ultimate goal of the Civil Rights revolution. Perhaps it was always heading this way. We can see this current batch of rioters using the tactics of “peaceful protests” to escalate to something more. We see the strategy of disruption and pitting citizen against law enforcement.

The difference is, my grandparents risked their safety for my liberty.

These lunatics are risking the safety of all of us for the cause of bondage.

They don’t even want you to be able to worship in peace.

MLK had a dream - that one day his “four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”

He spoke those words in 1963, and they have rung through the annals of American history ever since.

In 2026, the dream of MLK has been inverted by his disciples.

The Dream has become a Nightmare…and it looks like Americans are finally ready to wake up from it.

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