Henry Payne for January 18, 2021

Pretty much everyone in the USA who’s worth knowing gets MLK.

And pretty much everyone who speaks English got that “mlk = milk” joke 20 years ago.

Do you believe in the Voting Rights Act, and oppose the disenfranchisement of racial minorities, Henry? Because that puts you squarely opposed to the Republican Party. Maybe you should read the “Letter from Birmingham Jail".

H P: Johnny Come Lately

Someone please explain to me how Payne even dares reference Dr. King in any context.

I think it’s Payne’s equivalent of Trump humping the American flag.

Go ahead, Payne, show your contempt and disrespect for a man who had more bravery and statesmanship in his pinky than 99% of those sitting in our Congress today.

Henry doesn’t even have enough imagination to create something new. This is last year:

https://www.gocomics.com/henrypayne/2020/01/20

Look Henry, it’s a car. Go get it boy.

As if this idiot cartoonist has the slightest understanding of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s ideals and message…

In the last five years Payne has published three MLK comics. This one twice, and one other. They all have the same tired, “Got MLK” gag.

Back in 1967 and 1968 I was deep into the New York left community. I never met Dr. King, though I heard him speak in person in a small black church, maybe fifty feet away from him. He was spell-binding. I did know a lot of people who knew him, and some who had worked very closely with him. I also knew and worked with a lot of the more radical left. We all paid a lot of attention to King’s public positions, because he was so influential. King’s own politics were quite left. He was opposed to US neocolonial militarism from early on. For a long time he didn’t talk about it, because he knew it would cost him “liberal” support. Eventually he did take a strong position against the War in Vietnam. Even before that he had used the staff of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference to train people in the anti-war movement. He also firmly believed that problems of race in the US were closely tied to poverty and capitalism. He was pretty radical.

Is that Harvey Milk Payne is asking about? MLK and Harvey were both about rights.

You don’t.

Trump’s white supremacists sure don’t.

Dr. Martin Luther King on the candidacy of Barry Goldwater; “The Republican Party geared its appeal and program to racism, reaction, and extremism…On the urgent issue of civil rights, Senator Goldwater represents a philosophy that is morally indefensible and socially suicidal. While not himself a racist, Mr. Goldwater articulates a philosophy which gives aid and comfort to the racist. His candidacy and philosophy would serve as an umbrella under which extremists of all stripes would stand. In the light of these facts and because of my love for America, I have no alternative but to urge every Negro and white person of goodwill to vote against Mr. Goldwater and to withdraw support from any Republican candidate that does not publicly disassociate himself from Senator Goldwater and his philosophy.”