Killer Mike Speaks on the Misconceptions of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s Legacy

Yesterday (Jan. 17), Killer Mike was a part of a panel along with presidential candidate Bernie Sanders, Senator Nina Turner, and Dr. Colonel West that gathered in Charleston, South Carolina to discuss the life and legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Along with touching on some of the more memorable aspects of King's career, Killer Mike also touched on some things people tend not to attribute to the Nobel Peace Prize winner. According to the Atlanta rapper, there is a misconception of the slain Civil Rights leader.

“I have been mentored directly by Andrew Young, Joseph Lowery, Ralph David Abernathy III, and others that were directly involved with Dr. King…We have been sold a load of crock,” he said. “We have been given a pretty, little compartment to put Dr. King in that says ‘No matter how much you hurt. No matter how much we stigmatize you. No matter how much we traumatize you, we beat you. As radical as you could go is nonviolence.’ And that’s about where it is. It never talks about the social justice aspect of Dr. King.”

Through his findings, Killer Kill says King was much more than the passive aggressive figure we have come to know from school books. “Alice Johnson was a white woman and my mentor, from Chicago,” said the Run The Jewels member. “She was the first person to introduce me to the radically different ideas of King that directly challenged establishment. They challenged the military-industrial complex. They challenged this country to feed and take care of its poor and mentally ill in a different way…And I had never heard of that. I just heard in school ‘Be nonviolent.’ It was all about desegregation. It absolutely was not only about desegregation.”

Check out the entire video, above.

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