I'm noticing a certain strain of thinking in coverage of MLK day this year. You see it in this CNN.com article. The trend is towards remembering King not as a saintly figure of ancient history but as the robust modern activist who earned the FBI tag of "the most dangerous man in America." The colorful Dr. Cornel West well frames it as a pushback against the "Santa Clausification" of MLK.

A quick look at his history reveals that there's much more to the man and his legacy than the March on Washington. Take the very day he died, April 4, 1968. He spent it on the front lines of the union battles of the late sixties, in Memphis for the purpose of leading a labor protest by the sanitation workers of AFSCME Local 1733. Read his Letter from Birmingham Jail. It's no prisonhouse testimonial. Instead, it's a stinging rebuke of his fellow southern religious leaders who had chided him for upsetting the apple cart. I'd suggest that are shades of how the "Jesus Christ" figure is so often presented in pop culture these days. He's the kindly prince of peace, not the radical activist that even a conservative reading of the New Testament reveals. MLK inspired America towards peace and unity, no doubt. But he was also an anti-Vietnam war, anti-poverty, pro-labor warrior. His thinking on race has become mainstream. But his stances on workers' rights and war? Still extremist, I think you can argue. I suppose it's one reason why we've long seen the celebrations of his life embrace the former and ignore the latter. (Photo of MLK with Local 1733 leaders courtesy of AFSCME.)

Bonus: Here's the unlikely story of how Martin Luther King Jr. Day became a federal holiday, featuring Rep. John Conyers.