Far-right NC gubernatorial hopeful slammed MLK as a 'communist' and 'ersatz pastor'

After defeating Democrat Yvonne Lewis in 2020, far-right conspiracy theorist Mark Robinson became North Carolina's first Black lieutenant governor. Most of Robinson's support, however, has come not from African-Americans, but from white MAGA Republicans — including those who are supporting his 2024 gubernatorial campaign.

Robinson is known for his anti-gay, anti-Muslim and antisemitic comments as well as for his election denialism; Robinson has continued to promote the false claim that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from Donald Trump. And the lieutenant governor has a history of attacking Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

HuffPost's Jennifer Bendery examines Robinson's anti-MLK rants of the past in an article published on MLK Day 2024.

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"In January 2018," Bendery explains, "Robinson mocked people who celebrate King, who he said was just a subpar pastor. He didn't mention King by name, but he was clearly talking about the civil rights leader in his series of messages posted on MLK Day that year…. Those posts came exactly one year after Robinson wrote that he planned to work on MLK Day, a federal holiday, to show that he wasn't 'a leach' on society and allowing the government to cut him a break."

In a Facebook post on January 15, 2018, Robinson wrote, "It is at once funny and sad that so many people will follow the lead of a bunch of atheists and worship an ersatz pastor as a deity."

A year earlier, in a Facebook post of January 16, 2017, Robinson wrote, "Tomorrow I will do my 'service to the community' by going to work to continue to support myself and my family so I'm not a leach on said community."

Robinson also attacked King as a "communist" in the past, ignoring the fact that he was a scathing critic of communism. MLK wrote that "communism and Christianity are fundamentally incompatible," and he described communism as "cold atheism wrapped in the garments of materialism" — complaining that "communism provides no place for God or Christ."

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Read HuffPost's full article at this link.