On the box
‘Citizen King’
You can argue there is liberal bias here but the film is largely footage of MLK himself, magnetic, charismatic, a master of oratory and for all his failings a national hero. Incidentally I wasn’t joking when I mentioned some use his day to support the war on Iraq (in the guise of ‘support our troops’); locally a primary school did just that. I’d like to be in a room where a pupil writes and recites things reflecting what Dr King actually thought about those issues!

It’s also worth noting that the real work for civil rights seems to have been done in the ‘square’ ’60s — the more interesting version of the 1950s when much of the left seemed steeped in Christian principles and rhetoric — not the destructive end of that decade most people remember.

Pastor of Ebenezer Baptist Church calls for end to Iraq war