How Did Martin Luther King Jr. Get Dragged Into The NAACP And Florida Beef?

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Florida seems to be the intersection of multiple controversial topics at the moment, and somehow they all seem to trace back to the state’s GOP governor, Ron DeSantis.
The most recent of those issues that particularly applies to our community was the travel advisory issued out by the NAACP last week (May 20). Written as a direct response to DeSantis’ “aggressive attempts to erase Black history and to restrict diversity, equity, and inclusion programs in Florida schools,” the widely-circulated document sent shockwaves through the Sunshine State in addition to the entire Black community at whole.
“Florida is openly hostile toward African Americans, people of color and LGBTQ+ individuals,” one passage reads, further going into detail by stating, “Before traveling to Florida, please understand that the state of Florida devalues and marginalizes the contributions of, and the challenges faced by African Americans and other communities of color.”
While it was expected for DeSantis to be more than a bit perturbed by the NAACP’s scathing travel advisory, what wasn’t expected was his buddy from Texas, Senator Ted Cruz, finding a way to bring the late great Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. into Florida’s unlikely beef with the prestigious Black organization.
 
RELATED: Ya Think?: NAACP Issues Travel Advisory For Florida, “Hostile Toward African Americans”
As seen in his tweet above, sent out a day after the travel advisory was officially released, Cruz called it “utterly dishonest” and claimed, in his words, “Dr. King would be ashamed of how profoundly they’ve lost their way.” However, it wasn’t long before MLK Jr.’s own daughter, Dr. Bernice King, had a few words to tweet out herself, writing in direct response to Cruz, “What my father would be deeply concerned about is the harmful, discriminatory legislation in Florida.”
The classic photo she added of her dad in the tweet gave her response that extra sting it needed.
Clever clapbacks aside though, Dr. Bernice King makes a pretty valid point. As the advisory lays out with full clarity, Governor DeSantis has made the State of Florida the center of many hard debates when it comes to protesting in the wake of rising murder rates in the Black community, restricting how African-American history is taught with his war against CRT and his very public intolerance for the inclusion of anything LGBTQIA+-related in schools.
We all know quite well how much Dr. King went hard for the civil rights of Black Americans, sadly losing his life in the very pursuit of it on that fateful April day in 1968, but it wasn’t too clear how he felt towards homosexuality. The only instance where he publicly addressed it was in response to a 1958 advice column where a young closeted boy wrote King for help in what he should do with his feelings.
Take a look below at how that exchange went, archived via the official Martin Luther King Jr. Research Institute at Stanford University:
“Question: My problem is different from the ones most people have. I am a boy, but I feel about boys the way I ought to feel about girls. I don’t want my parents to know about me. What can I do? Is there any place where I can go for help?
MLK Jr.: Your problem is not at all an uncommon one. However, it does require careful attention. The type of feeling that you have toward boys is probably not an innate tendency, but something that has been culturally acquired. Your reasons for adopting this habit have now been consciously suppressed or unconsciously repressed. Therefore, it is necessary to deal with this problem by getting back to some of the experiences and circumstances that lead to the habit. In order to do this I would suggest that you see a good psychiatrist who can assist you in bringing to the forefront of conscience all of those experiences and circumstances that lead to the habit. You are already on the right road toward a solution, since you honestly recognize the problem and have a desire to solve it.”
There’s a lot of ways you can dissect Dr. King’s response. For one, it’s very gentle, understanding and without any prejudice; we can at least assume he’d be an ally. However, he does label it as a “problem” that has a “right road toward a solution.” Could Dr. King have been suggesting therapy to “cure” the boy of his homosexuality and unearth early influences that prematurely persuaded his same-sex attraction? Or, also likely, was his response more to get the boy to get help in fully coming to terms with one day being a proud gay man like his good friend and civil rights colleague Bayard Rustin?
That relationship didn’t come without its trials and tribulations though, as Rustin himself confirmed in a 1987 essay. In it, he stated that pressure from King’s advisory committee within the Friendship Baptist Church “harassed” Dr. King to terminate Rustin due to his sexuality. “I told Dr. King that if advisors closest to him felt I was a burden, then rather than put him in a position that he had to say leave, I would go,” Rustin wrote, going on to surprisingly add, “Adam Clayton Powell, for some reason I will never understand, actually called Dr. King when he was in Brazil and indicated that he was aware of some relationship between me and Dr. King, which, of course, there was not. This added to his anxiety about additional discussions of sex.”
 
Given that King still called on Rustin years after the latter excused himself to alleviate political stress for the former, it’s our belief that Martin Luther King Jr. believed in equality for all, including all his brothers and sisters in the LGBTQIA+ community. Sorry Cruz…wrong on that point, too!
Here’s what the NAACP wants you to know if you plan on making a trek to Florida anytime soon:
Hey…if the shoe fits!
 
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