Writing on our national holiday for Martin Luther King Jr. and looking ahead to Black History Month in February, the disparity between our country’s professed love for King today and the facts surrounding his life and death are stark. During much of his life, King was hated and feared by so many people in government, along with racists nationwide, that his assassination seems almost predictable in a violent country like ours.

His power to lead and unify people coupled with his brilliant writing and speaking skills made him a threat to the status quo, which closely resembles the one that professes so much respect for him today.

I was a bit too young and geographically isolated to be fully involved in the civil rights movement before his death, but became keenly aware of his life and philosophy soon afterward. Many of his speeches, sermons and essays were truly seminal for a generation who imagined, and worked for, social change. By reading a small portion of his work, it became clear that he was not just a single-issue leader, but instead explored the relationships among our economic system, racial attitudes, and America’s worldwide military presence.

His opponents were many and powerful, and they searched for a weakness to exploit. J. Edgar Hoover saw a Communist behind every door and beneath every rug, and MLK and the civil rights movement were no exception. Critics tried to force him (along with many others) to disavow communism and socialism, but King’s integrity and intellect compelled him to present a nuanced view, rather than the blanket judgments they demanded.

As a young man, Bayard Rustin, one of King’s closest advisers, had been a member of a Communist organization, but left when their focus shifted away from Black civil rights. In 1953, Rustin was convicted of homosexual activity and forced to resign some important posts. But King maintained a strong relationship with Rustin because of his analytical and organizing skills.

Rustin thought civil rights organizations should establish and maintain close ties with labor unions, because “freedom cannot be sustained in the midst of economic insecurity and exploitation.” Later, King noted that “the poor white was exploited as much as the Negro.”

In 1962, King preached that “no Christian can be a Communist” since it was a system categorically committed to atheism. He also noted that Lenin and others believed that “the end justifies the means,” and endorsed in writing the use of “trickery, deceit, and lawbreaking, withholding and concealing truth” if necessary to achieve their goals, an approach contradictory to King’s Christianity.

But he also observed that the goals of communism, as opposed to capitalism, were inclusive, designed to lift up the lower economic classes. Communism posed a challenge for Christians, since its economic vision aligned with New Testament Christianity: “Indeed, it may be that communism is a necessary corrective for a Christianity that has been all too passive and a democracy that has been all too inert.” It was this type of revolutionary analysis, and his dedication to the poor, including his work on the 1968 Poor People’s March on Washington before his assassination, that made King a threat to those who held economic, social, political, and even religious power.

He was hesitant to describe himself as a supporter of communism or socialism (either label would bring widespread harassment), but in private letters he admitted that he tended more toward socialism and communism than capitalism, although he still saw the “relative merits” of capitalism: “It started out with a noble and high motive, to block the trade monopolies of nobles, but like most human systems, it fell victim to the very thing it was revolting against.” In modern capitalism, he wrote, “we’ve taken necessities from the many to give luxuries to the few.”

In a clear, simple analysis in 1967, he observed that “communism forgets that life is individual” while capitalism forgets that “life is social.” This approach angered people on both sides, and would not play well on social media today. But King stuck to his complex, nuanced view, and his assassination ended further investigation.

Malcom X rejected those types of nuances. Both were revolutionaries fighting to change our basic social, economic, and political systems and both met their end from the barrel of a gun, one held by a white supremacist, the other by Black men encouraged by former supporters. One fact of Black history is that Blacks who are boldly critical of the status quo have often met early, and violent, ends.

Allen Woods is a freelance writer, author of the Revolutionary-era historical fiction novel “The Sword and Scabbard,” and Greenfield resident. His column appears regularly on Saturdays. Comments are welcome here or at awoods2846@gmail.com.