William J. Bennett’s Aug. 12 commentary is the latest example of a recent trend in conservative public relations--opponents of affirmative action claiming to be

William J. Bennett’s Aug. 12 commentary is the latest example of a recent trend in conservative public relations--opponents of affirmative action claiming to be the heirs of Martin Luther King Jr. They invoke the sentence from King’s 1963 speech looking forward to the day his children would be judged by “the content of their character,” not the “color of their skin.” Bennett conveniently ignores one fact--King was a strong supporter of affirmative action. In “Why We Can’t Wait,” published in 1963, he argued that given the long history of American racism, blacks fully deserved “special, compensatory measures” in jobs, education and other realms. Four years later, in “Where Do We Go From Here?” he wrote: “A society that has done something special against the Negro for hundreds of years must now do something special for him.” You are incorrect about MLKs assessment. From the LA Times.