Greeley, Colorado school board member broadcasting daily attacks against Martin Luther King

As the annual observation of Martin Luther King's birthday nears, a Greeley, Colorado, school board member is causing problems by broadcasting daily attacks against Dr. King:

A member of the Greeley-Evans School District 6 board of education is using his radio station twice daily to broadcast an attack on the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., calling the slain civil rights leader a sexual degenerate, plagiarist and “modern-day plastic god.”


In the broadcast, Brett Reese, owner of 104.7 FM Pirate Radio, reads a letter that he said came from a listener three years ago. He said it does not necessarily reflect his own thoughts or ideas — although he did not disavow the message, either, in an e-mail exchange with the Tribune on Friday — but he said he believes in the open discussion of history. He also said he does not know who actually wrote the letter.

Reese said he will continue to broadcast the recording twice a day until Martin Luther King Jr. Day on Jan. 17. The city of Greeley and the University of Northern Colorado are sponsoring the 15th annual Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. March and Celebration on that day.

“He's not a legitimate reverend, he's not a bona fide Ph.D. and his name really isn't Martin Luther King Jr.,” Reese says in the broadcast. “What's left? Just a sexual degenerate, an America-hating communist and a criminal betrayer of even the interests of his own people.”

Fellow school board member Bob Stack said it was inappropriate for Reese, as a board member, to continually broadcast such a message.