In the 1960s right-wing conspiracist groups and racists attacked the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Civil Rights Movement as puppets of the communists. This was not only false, but deflected attention from the legitimate demands for racial justice and the need for laws protecting the Civil Rights already guaranteed under the U.S. Constitution.

The claim was based on the guilt-by-association claim that anyone who attended a meeting where a communist was present was either a puppet of the communist conspiracy or a dupe of the communist conspiracy.

Today, right-wing demagogues such as Glenn Beck spin conspiracy theories about a collectivist/socialist threat to the nation posed by another Black man, President Barack Obama, and his allies on the Left. These right-wing pundits demonize specific targets that not only include groups and individuals struggling for racial justice, but also struggling for a fair economic system and peace--the same trio of issues listed by King in his 1967 speech at the Riverside Church. There, King spoke of the need to “go out into a sometimes hostile world declaring eternal hostility to poverty, racism, and militarism.”

The section of the flyer below, titled "Martin Luther King, Jr. At Communist Training School" included a large photograph at the top showing King at the progressive Highlander Center.