Progressive~Fresh

It’s really hard when you’re trying to do something good for mankind and “something comes out”. It’d be safe to assume that many people out there don’t know that Dr. King has had affairs with numerous women throughout his marriage. Director Lee Daniels, recently awarded for his directing effort in “Precious”, plans to release a biopic of Dr. King called “Selma”.  The problem is: included is a draft of a scene of King and a hooker “hooking up”. Needless to say, the King family has a LOT to worry about right now.

And please believe they’ve been nervous about this.  Selma will be produced by Brad Pitt and “Slumdog Millionaire” Oscar winner Christian Colson, and the project’s script is said to portray King as the tireless martyr of America’s civil rights movement as most of us would recognize him. But the screenplay also shows him to be an ordinary man who had, as his colleague Ralph Abernathy wrote, a “weakness for women.”

According to Bossip, in one scene President Lyndon Johnson tells FBI director J. Edgar Hoover that he doesn’t know or care “whether [King] has a gargantuan appetite for pussy or whether he just sometimes needs a woman’s touch when he’s away from home…”
In another scene at a hotel in Washington, King meets a flirtatious woman who tells him, “You look like you need some tender loving care, honey.”
“You’re way out of my price bracket,” says King.
“I’ll donate part of my fee to the cause,” she says.
Soon thereafter, Hoover’s agents are seen recording King’s lovemaking with the woman, as well as their conversation after sex. King’s wife, Coretta, receives a copy of the tape, with an anonymous blackmail letter.
King biographer, David Garrow,  states that King explained his numerous extramarital affairs as “a form of anxiety reduction” (should have used that excuse Tiger Woods, but I digress.) In 1968, according to historian Taylor Branch, he admitted to Coretta that he’d carried on a five-year romance with a married woman.
Still in spite of what seems to be the facts coming from the sources, King’s heirs are trying to keep his dalliances out of “Selma.” Last week, a rep for Martin Luther King 3rd told us, “Our attorneys are reviewing the script.”
But now, “Selma” director Lee Daniels tells us the Kings can relax. “The script they have is not my script,” says Daniels.
Daniels is still “evaluating” the draft, but says he doesn’t believe the hooker scene is necessary.

That was a close one Dr. King! Or is it really?

“This project is still in an embryonic stage,” he says. “But I can tell you my story focuses on the civil rights marches. It’s not about tapes and prostitutes. It’s about the African-American man who changed history.”

So what do you think, reader? Should MLK’s affairs be in the documentary for accuracy sake, or should we sweep this under the rug for ol’ boy? Let’s hear your thoughts in the comments!