Friday, April 5, 2019 - 3:00pm
Cohen Hall, 402
Abstract: This paper is an attempt to develop an account of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s justification for and use of, what I will call, "democratic propaganda" – truthful propaganda that is aimed at promoting and fostering democratic political action by stirring the emotions. Interpreting it light of his broader work, I argue that King’s famous “Letter from Birmingham Jail” is a piece of democratic propaganda. In doing so, I give an account of what led King to support the use of democratic propaganda and why he hoped it would help to overcome a central problem in the civil rights movement: namely, the political inaction of powerful white moderates such as President John F. Kennedy.