By Kevin Lamb

hat do the Heritage Foundation, Human Events, and the Socialist Party USA have in common? They all lay claim to the legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr.

On Jan. 16th, the twentieth federal holiday celebrating King's birthday, the conservative Republicans at HumanEventsOnline.com posted a lengthy glowing tribute to the late civil rights leader. Carolyn Garris, Program Coordinator of the B. Kenneth Simon Center for American Studies of the right-wing Heritage Foundation, argued that conservatives should "lay claim" to the legacy of the slain black leader because he believed in the "principles of the American Founding" and because "his core beliefs, such as the power and necessity of faith-based association and self-government based on absolute truth and moral law, are profoundly conservative."

Human Events' warm embrace of King today represents a complete about-face from the paper's position twenty years ago. Back then, Human Events fanned the flames among grassroots conservatives opposed to making King's birthday a national holiday. In several articles and editorials, the conservative weekly applauded the efforts of legislators such as Sen. Jesse Helms, R.-NC, and Rep. John Ashbrook, R.-OH, who led the fight in Congress against the King holiday.

In a front page article in the October 15, 1983, issue, Human Events' editors explained their opposition. In bold text the editors argued,

"But make no mistake about this piece of legislation. It has been steamrollered through - fueled by a tone of hypocrisy - in an attempt to appease the black vote. The King holiday bill is another pinch of incense on the altar of those civil rights "spokesmen" who demand from the rest of us not equal treatment but gross favoritism, fresh tribute for supposed past sins which have already been paid for several times over."

Human Events denounced the radicalism espoused by King, and noted that even Life magazine sharply criticized King's anti-Vietnam War speech in New York City on April 4, 1967, as "a demagogic slander that sounded like a script for Radio Hanoi." The editorial asked, "Is this the kind of man we should elevate to the same exalted status as the father of our country?"

One month later, Human Events published Sen. Helm's speech of October 3, 1983, as an eight-page "special supplement" titled, "The Radical Record of Martin Luther King," which documented King's communist affiliations and likely KGB connections. The once hard-hitting conservative weekly was no fan of Martin Luther King - until now.

Anyone familiar with King's record knows full well he advocated radical restructuring of American government and society, more in sync with the Socialist Party, as an advocate of a "living wage," apostle of the "dispossessed," and staunch critic of capitalism. In 1965, King even wrote a glowing tribute to Norman Thomas, the leader of the Socialist Party, in an article published in Pageant magazine. In its literature, the Socialist Party USA approvingly quotes King advocating a "guaranteed income" and "revolution" against "the structures" of society.

It is simply gross ignorance - or deliberate deception - to claim that King symbolizes the principles that conservatives embrace.

The idea of equality under the law as envisioned by our Founding Fathers, for example, differs dramatically from the radical egalitarianism advocated by King. In reality, King was motivated by what he perceived as gross social and economic injustices leading back to the founding of the Republic. As he himself put it, "The dispossessed of this country - the poor, the white and Negro - live in a cruelly unjust society."

King's principles and outlook are the polar opposite of the conservatism of Barry Goldwater who opposed the King-backed 1964 Civil Rights Act, championed limited government, and favored a strong national defense. As an advocate of left-wing programs for "civil rights and social justice," King denounced U.S. "militaristic" policies that opposed Communism in Vietnam, and argued that "poor countries are poor primarily because we have exploited them through political or economic colonialism." He further argued that "our loyalties must transcend ... our nation; and this means we must develop a world perspective."

In other words, King openly defied the values and principles that define traditionalist conservatism. In the 1960's, conservatives respected their European heritage, defended their cultural values, and embraced their national origins in a patriotic spirit of civic honor.

So what explains this modern embrace of King as a hero to conservatives? In essence, today's conservative movement has drifted steadily leftward on cultural issues, being led by neo-conservative ideologists that have more in common with Herbert Aptheker, W. E. B. DuBois, and other radical socialists than they do with Richard Weaver, Barry Goldwater, or Russell Kirk. In the contemporary political era, Republican conservatives have morphed into the equivalent of European Social Democrats.

When it comes to bedrock cultural values, the conservatives who represent the ranks of today's conservative movement are anything but conservative.

Kevin Lamb is a former managing editor of Human Events and is the communications director of the National Policy Institute.