The structure of the column was such that he answered several questions at a time, so the advice was meant to be brief. Even so, these answers don’t feel as measured and considered as so much of King’s written work dealing with issues of racism and American life. To be fair, he responded to both men’s and women’s inquiries about marital problems by first advising a “self-analysis,” but his answers to men did not rely upon old sexist tropes about nagging wives. And he was still fairly young at the time of this writing: only 28 years old when he started the column, and only about four years into his own marriage. Perhaps some of his views matured later. But these details only make the question of why he was even approached for this sort of gig even more curious.

One clue as to an explanation comes from Jet magazine, the sister publication to Ebony, where an advertisement for King’s advice column included the line: “Let the man that led the Montgomery boycott lead you into happier living.”

There’s no reason to presume King would have any useful insight on “happier living,” except to connect his moral and ethical stand against injustice to a deeper emotional intelligence. The two don’t always go together. Nevertheless, the image of King as a moral leader was already being used as a way to influence more than just the political destiny of the country, but as a guidepost for how to live and conduct yourself in every aspect of life.

In the 50 years since his assassination, the memory of King, as fuzzy a thing as memories are, has been used as a cudgel of moral authority. Americans have crafted a version of King that is a perfect black manhood. People of varying political stripes have appropriated the legacy of King and used his perceived moral superiority as a way of upholding an idea of societal change that rests on personal conduct and respectability, rather than grassroots organizing and power building.

Memes circulate explaining why black men are supposedly no longer taken seriously, juxtaposing photos of King in his trademark black suit, crisp white shirt, and stern intellectual glare against those meant to represent modern-day black men, with gold teeth, sagging pants, sometimes brandishing weapons, but often not even needing to go that far. The message is clear enough: There was once a black man who was respectable, so much so that he managed to alter the course of American racism by the sheer force of his respectable demeanor. Those days are gone and as such black people will continue to suffer.

This, of course, is not the way it actually worked. King was not universally praised for his suit choices during his life, nor for his broader message of justice and dismantling systems of oppression. But the fantasy of such a figure is an effective way of dismissing black youth culture as some perversion of a true black culture, one built by men like King, and therefore that culture need not be treated with any measure of care, understanding, or respect. If King’s philosophy, tactics, demeanor, and style are the standard, the people who fashion themselves as serious political thinkers have no reason to engage anyone who is not mimicking King. As such, they can limit the parameters of the debate to their sanitized, cuddly version of King’s politics. And without an infusion of differing viewpoints, the status quo is protected, and American institutions can continue their oppression unabated.