Martin Luther King, Jr has seldom figured in the Left's pantheon of Socialist heroes. To many of his contemporaries he seemed a typical product of the 'black bourgeoisie'; a middle class preacher from a middle class family who pursued middle class goals. Although an eloquent and courageous for racial justice, his ultimate vision as expressed for example in his famous 'I Have a Dream' oration seemed to be integration of the Negro into the existing structure of the society; capitalism was not at issue.