As we celebrate Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., you'll see a lot of out-of-context quotes from people who have fought against what King stood for.

I think one of the most important parts of MLK's legacy is that it contextualizes how this country reacts to Black protest:

A thread:

Take @TedCruz, for instance.

Remember he said Black Lives Matter activists were "violent terrorists" & 'avowed Marxists' looking to disrupt the 'Western-prescribed nuclear family structure"

These statements may be wrong because the source isn't reputable:

Ted Cruz's website.

Cruz' statements sound a lot like when people called civil rights activists "racial agitators, spurred by communist enticements to promote racial strife."

Who said that?

Senator Strom Thurmond...On June 19, 1964—the day the Civil Rights Act passed.

Thurmond also said

King "must always have an agitation objective lest he end up in the street one day without a drum to beat or a headline to make."

When did he say it?

On the day the Voting Rights Act passed.

Man, that sounds familiar! Who would say something like that?

Hawley sounds like Jesse Helms, who said King's "action-oriented revolutionary doctrine" was not "compatible with the concepts of this country?"

When did he say that racist bullshit?

The day King's birthday became a holiday.

It was longer than 280 characters, tho, so:

And that whole violent insurrection that just happened?

Well, the reason I don't like when people say that the FBI would have been all over it "if Black people had been there" is because I know what the FBI said about King.

You remember the March on Washington, right?

It was that time when violent Black extremists went to Washington and DIDN'T try to overthrow the American government?

What did the FBI say?

They concluded King was the "most dangerous man Negro in the future of this nation."

You can't forget that most white people's opinion of MLK grew WORSE over the years. Seriously. When MLK died AS MANY white Americans (33%) said "he brought it on himself" as said they were sad about it. (32%)

And support for civil rights protests wasn't any different

Of course, that was back then. Race relations are getting better, now. For instance, every day, more people begin to accept the idea that Black Lives Matter...

Except that's not true.

BLM support among White people is actually DECLINING according to everyone who studied it

And this is not to be "divisive" or incendiary and I'm not saying we haven't made any progress

But over the next couple of days, you're gonna hear a lot about King's "Dream" and how far we've come.

All I'm saying is that you should remember that EVERY criticism you hear now

Is the same stuff they told Dr. King when he was alive.

And the reason we have a long way to go is not because we aren't trying

It's because the SAME ARGUMENTS are being used to stop us.

They are ALWAYS wrong.

But, as you can see, that never really mattered, did it?