{"id":334883,"date":"2026-01-17T14:44:18","date_gmt":"2026-01-17T19:44:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/truthout.org\/?post_type=to4_article_post&p=334883"},"modified":"2026-01-17T14:44:21","modified_gmt":"2026-01-17T19:44:21","slug":"coretta-scott-king-publicly-opposed-vietnam-before-mlk-and-urged-him-to-follow","status":"publish","type":"to4_article_post","link":"https:\/\/truthout.org\/articles\/coretta-scott-king-publicly-opposed-vietnam-before-mlk-and-urged-him-to-follow\/","title":{"rendered":"Coretta Scott King Publicly Opposed Vietnam Before MLK \u2014 and Urged Him to Follow"},"content":{"rendered":"

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As Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids schools, states ban honest teaching about race and gender, and public officials invoke Martin Luther King Jr. to call for restraint and \u201ccivility,\u201d King\u2019s legacy is being aggressively stripped of its political substance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Much of the scholarship and public memory of King has long privileged his work in the South, reinforcing the idea that racism was a regional aberration rather than a national system. This narrowing also obscures the intellectual and political partnership at the heart of King\u2019s work, particularly the leadership of Coretta Scott King, whose global vision, antiwar activism, and organizing shaped both King\u2019s politics and the broader freedom struggle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

King\u2019s sustained campaigns in Northern cities reveal how deeply he understood racism as structural \u2014 embedded in schools, housing, policing, and liberal governance \u2014 and how challenging this structural racism required disruption, organizing, and sustained pressure, rather than moral appeals alone.<\/p>

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