A History Lesson

This unpublished letter-to-the-editor was sent to the New York Daily News "Voice of the People" via e-mail on May 1, 2015.

Dear Editor:

I don't excuse or condone the actions of the rioters and looters in Baltimore. And Voicer Andrew Keats is correct when he stated that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. "didn't sit at home waiting for an excuse to steal, destroy and riot." However, Keats paints a rose-colored depiction of the civil rights movement and Dr. King's peaceful and nonviolent marches. He overlooks the fact that despite Dr. King's nonviolent protests against social injustice, he was still thought to be a lawbreaker, an agitator, and a Communist dupe, if not an outright Communist, by Southern segregationists, conservative religious leaders, and J. Edgar Hoover of the FBI.

Sincerely yours,
Charles Michael Smith

A Film Producer's Change Of Mind

Letters
Entertainment Weekly
1675 Broadway
New York, NY 10019
August 10, 1994

Dear Editor:

Could the real reason Forrest Gump producer Steve Starkey took out the scene involving Gump and Martin Luther King ("News & Notes, EW #233, July 29) be that he feared a negative reaction from the African-American community over the computer-manipulated image of King in a Hollywood film?

Sincerely yours,
Charles Michael Smith

The above letter was sent but not published.