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U.S. Rep.  of Texas is just the latest conservative lawmaker to misuse the words of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. to judge a person on character and not race.

In  to elect Rep. Kevin McCarthy as speaker of the House, Roy, a Republican, nominated a Black man, , a two-term representative from Florida who had little chance of winning the seat. Considered  in the GOP, Donalds has opposed the very things King fought for and ultimately was assassinated for鈥� and .

Calling Donalds a 鈥渄ear friend,鈥� Roy noted the selection by Democrats of another Black man,  of New York, and invoked King鈥檚 words.

鈥淔or the first time in history, there have been two Black Americans placed into nomination for speaker of the House,鈥� . 鈥淗owever, we do not seek to judge people by the color of their skin, but rather, the content of their character.鈥�

As  who researches social movements, racial politics, and democracy, I have seen the consequences of the misuse of King鈥檚 words play out everywhere from the halls of Congress to corporate diversity training sessions to local school board meetings.

In Roy鈥檚 case, the invocation of King鈥檚 legacy was an attempt to hide , including his vote with 146 others to overturn the 2020 presidential election results. Roy鈥檚 speech also omits  for voting reform laws in Florida that many Black civil rights leaders understood as efforts to .

As scholars, civil rights activists, and  have long pointed out, uses of King鈥檚 words, especially by right-wing conservatives, are too often attempts to weaponize his memory against the multicultural democracy of which King could only dream.

A Sanitized MLK

As every Martin Luther King Jr. Day nears on the third Monday in January, politicians across the political spectrum鈥攊ncluding  in 1983鈥攊ssue their heartfelt dedications to King or quote him in their own speeches.

Yet January is also a month that commemorates a darker, more recent memory of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol by right-wing extremists.

The two issues鈥攎isuses of King鈥檚 memory and the Jan. 6 attacks鈥攎ay seem like unrelated phenomena.

Yet , The Struggle for the People鈥檚 King: How Politics Transforms the Memory of the Civil Rights Movement, I show how there is a direct line from distortions of King鈥檚 words and legacy to right-wing attacks on multicultural democracy and contemporary politics.

The misuses of King are not accidental.

In the late 1970s and early 1980s, a sanitized version of King was part of a conservative political strategy for swaying white moderates to support President Ronald Reagan鈥檚 reelection by making King鈥檚 birthday a national holiday.

Even after  finally signed the King holiday into law in 1983, he would write letters of assurance to  that only  of King would be commemorated.

That version was free of not only the racial politics that shaped the civil rights movement, but also of the vision of systemic change King envisioned. In addition, Reagan鈥檚 version left out the views King held against the Vietnam War.

Instead, the GOP鈥檚 sanitized version only comprises King鈥檚 vision of a colorblind society鈥攁t the expense of the deep, systemic change King believed was needed to achieve a society in which character was more important than race.

Weaponizing America鈥檚 Racist Past

This interpretation of King鈥檚 memory would become a powerful political tool.

Increasingly through the 1980s, right-wing social movements鈥攆rom the gun rights and family values coalitions to nativists and white supremacists鈥攄eployed King鈥檚 memory to claim they were the new minorities .

These groups claimed that  were the real victims of multicultural democracy and in fact were 鈥渢he new Blacks.鈥�

This false version of social reality eventually evolved into the 鈥済reat replacement theory,鈥� the far-right conspiracy theory, espoused by public figures like , that white people are being demographically and culturally replaced with non-white peoples and that white existence is under threat.

In these distortions, gun rights activists called themselves the , anti-abortion activists declared themselves , and anti-gay groups claimed themselves protectors of King鈥檚 .

These distortions of the past were not just rhetorical.

Over time, these political strategies had powerful effects and generated what appears in my view as an alternative social reality that, for many white Americans, began to feel like the only reality.

Misinformation Threatens Democracy

Through the making of these alternative histories, right-wing strategists, such as Steve Bannon, could stir up white right-wing voters to .

Such was the politics that led to Donald Trump鈥檚 2016 election and shaped a presidential administration that , emboldened white supremacists, and banned anti-racism training.

Through the misrepresentation of the racial past, this alternate social reality hardened.

Ultimately, these revisionist narratives have fractured the collective understanding of who we are, how we got here, and where we go next. In my view, moving forward means honestly confronting the often ugly past and the deep roots of white supremacy that shaped it then and now.

It is only by facing, rather than ignoring, the complexity of America鈥檚 history that the 鈥溾�� King once envisioned can be realized.

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