David Brooks's secret message

Protest marcher. Prophet Amos, from Pueblo de Dios Lutheran Church.

The Yale Professor of Humility, with that uncanny ability he has to root out little-known facts, has learned that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., was a well-regarded Christian theologian. And not only that:

It’s also worth remembering that while today we take marches and protests for granted, the tactics of the civil rights movement had deep philosophical and religious roots.

Moreover, King and A. Philip Randolph and Bayard Rustin were not liberals.

The leaders rejected the soft meliorism of more secular activists, the idea that significant progress could be made through consciousness-raising and education campaigns, through consensus and gradual reform. As Rustin put it, African-American leaders like him looked upon “the middle-class idea of long-term educational and cultural changes with fear and mistrust.”

The conclusion is obvious: indeed, so obvious that Brooks leaves it unstated, with his usual sophistication (also known as chronic dishonesty): King was a conservative!

Just like Tolstoy and Gandhi. And St. Francis. And the prophet Amos.

Or maybe just old Mr. Buckley, who had such a high regard for Dr. King, and set the standard for explaining his thinking by distorting what he said.