I haven’t been to that museum, but I’m curious now… Did they also point out that King might not have taken that path if the women of Montgomery insisted that they have a boycott? Or that the reason the boycott went so well was because of the women who organized it? Or that Rosa Parks had a long history of activism? Check out Danielle McGuires book on women in the civil rights movement, I think it gives a much fuller picture of what was happening and why:
http://atthedarkendofthestreet.com/
The King museum here in Atlanta tends to gloss over people like Ella Baker or Bayard Rustin (Rustin gets a mention and Baker, none–but, fair enough, it’s the King museum, right?), long time vets who helped to shape the movement, in many ways, more so than King, despite the fact that he was the public face of the movement… I think there is a strong class dimension to why that was so, as well as in part due to Rustin’s supposed “indiscretions”–his arrests for “sexual misconduct” in LA.
I struggle with these sorts of historical ommissions, which sanitize the movement to such an extent.
