What is known, unknown, and underknown.

Two surprises in one post. From Don’t let them have a double standard about their double standards by Niall Kilmartin. I gather that someone has been doing some research and or they have a new biography of Martin Luther King coming out which appears to report on his serial philandering and unfaithfulness and additionally alleges one or more instances of rape.

In junior high in Sweden in the early seventies, we were taught, in my international school, that one of the FBI's illegal strategies to repress the Civil Rights movement was the spying and taping on MLK to use his trysts as blackmail against him. I understood this to have been common knowledge. But given some of the commentary (I have not been tracking it at all except at a headline level), this history seems now to not be widely known at all.

Things that are, I believe, well established about MLK include that he had many accusations of plagiarism, that he was frequently unfaithful to his wife, and, towards the end of his life cut short, he began evolving from a freedom agenda towards a more statist view of things. The accusation of rape is new to me but almost every philanderer almost always skirts behaviors which can be viewed as or experienced as rape - I am thinking of Bill Clinton and John Kennedy in particular but there are plenty of others.

If we really wanted to trash MLK's reputation, people have pointed out that MLK was overly cautious and many of the more memorable events on the way to an avalanche of civil rights legislation were actually under the leadership of others even though they might be attributed to MLK today.

We could do that. And we could accept all those accusations to be true.

And he was still a great man. No one is without sin. Few of us have less than a staggering burden of sinful thoughts, words, and deeds. And yet from our moral failings and bad judgments, humans can still do wonderful things. MLK was a man more successful than others in calling our attention to the shameful shortfall between our promises of freedom and liberty and our actual practices. MLK is not to be admired because he was a saint. He is to be admired because he was an ordinary man who demanded we live up to our own expectations as we should have been doing all along.

If we only can admire those who are without sin, then there will be no one left to admire.

This post surprised me by pointing out that what I thought was widely known (MLK's unfaithfulness) is apparently no longer widely taught.

The second surprise in the post is actually in the comments. It is a reasonably civil and erudite discussion.

It turns towards the issue of how we should retroactively judge those on actions and behaviors acceptable at a different time from ours. Which inevitably leads to the issue of slavery. Which in turn leads to a discussion of Jefferson's paternity of children from his slave, Sally Hemings.

Julie near Chicago comments:

Thirteen scholars, including Robert F. Turner, Forrest McDonald, Walter Williams, Paul Rahe, and several others, were asked by The Thomas Jefferson Heritage Society to study evidence about the claim that Sally Hemings, a slave to Mr. Jefferson, bore him a child.

From the T.J.H.S. website (my boldface):

https://www.tjheritage.org/the-scholars-commission

Letter dated May 26, 2000 from the President of The Thomas Jefferson Heritage Society to the Chairman of The Scholars Commission confirming that “you have our assurance that the work of The Scholars Commission will be completely independent of efforts to influence your methodology or conclusions by The Heritage Society or its members.”

The specific mission of The Scholars Commission on the Jefferson-Hemings Issue (The Scholars Commission) was to make their best informed judgment on the evidence that is currently available on whether Thomas Jefferson fathered any of Sally Hemings’ children. Their mission was not to prove the possible paternity of Sally Hemings’ children by Thomas Jefferson, but rather to render a judgment on its likelihood after carefully examining all of the available evidence in accordance with customary standards and weight of evidence. The Scholars Commission was encouraged to pursue truth wherever it leads. The Scholars Commission was officially formed in June 2000 and publicly released an independent, thorough, logical, and compelling report on 13 April 2001.

The site linked above provides a timeline of the investigation and a summary of the results. The 40-page findings report by the Scholars Commission, as it was called, is posted on the Web as “The Jefferson-Hemings Controversy: Report of the Scholars Commission,” and can be downloaded at

https://www.tjheritage.org/scholars-commission-pdf

I have found it detailed and very interesting.

On Sept. 1, 2001, the Heritage Society posted this on the main page (first link above):

A careful, year-long analysis of claims that Thomas Jefferson fathered one or more children of his slave, Sally Hemings, has yielded stunning conclusions. In a stark challenge to earlier reports, all but one of the 13 scholars expressed considerable skepticism about the charge, and some went so far as to express a conviction that it is almost certainly not true.

Only Dr. Paul Rahe dissented from the overall conclusion of the rest of the Commission.

The main page also includes this notice:

Now available to the visitors to this website is the Summary [pdf, at the link above] from the 2011 book “The Jefferson-Hemings Controversy” from Carolina Academic Press. The Summary is about 40 pages of this 400 page book which contains over 1400 footnotes.

As Capitalism Magazine wrote:

The Scholars Commission report pointed out that the original DNA report indicated only that a Jefferson male had fathered one of Sally Hemings’ children–the available DNA could not specify Thomas Jefferson as the father.

To anyone who’s interested in this, I do recommend reading the Report.

I thought Jefferson's paternity was reasonably well established. Is this just a fringe group? Checking their names, these seem to be reputable scholars.

So in one post I discover that:

Contrary to expectations most people people seems unaware of MLK's many moral lapses, particularly his serial philandering.

Contrary to my understanding, there is apparently strong evidence against Jefferson's paternity of children with slave Sally Hemings.

Live and learn. All knowledge is contingent on new facts.