Suing the District

Blackmailing MLK, the history of racist censorship, and the SC "Freedom Caucus" Lawsuit against Lexington One

This piece is Part III in an ongoing series considering parallels between the “Southern Strategy” of 1960s American politics and the current manufactured war on race- and gender-related discussions and concepts. Part I is here. Part II is here.

The sheer power on display to turn King against himself— a process that has been underway since the first day this holiday was celebrated— is a grim reflection of the way opponents have long subjected antiracist thinking and activism to distortion, misappropriation and redefinition. The brazen casting of critical race theory as the contemporary villain following 2020’s racial reckoning is no surprise.

—Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw, “King Was a Critical Race Theorist Before There Was a Name for It,” 2022.

For the first time in their history, Negroes have become aware of the deeper causes for the crudity and cruelty that governed white society's responses to their needs. They discovered that their plight was not a consequence of superficial prejudice…