Martin Luther King at a Communist Training School (American billboard, 1965)

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Text: Martin Luther King at a Communist Training School.

Year: 1965

Publisher: John Birch Society.

Artist: NA.

Additional Information: American billboard in Alabama, 1965, claiming to show Martin Luther King at a ‘Communist Training School’. The photo was taken in 1957 and shows King at a workshop at Tennessee’s Highlander Folk School, which was founded in 1932 and had, by the 1960s, gained a reputation as centre for left-wing organisation and civil rights activism. Right-wing groups claimed the school was a hotbed of communism and ‘racial agitation’ and displayed the photo of King on billboards during the Selma-Montgomery marches in an attempt to discredit him. These particular billboards were sponsored by the John Birch Society.