And yet it's the only common link between the two.

If your understanding of why there are any statues of MLK boils down to “he was a famous guy who said stuff and then got shot,” your history teachers have failed you.

If we want to get down to the nut of it, he was an icon of a large and very successful social movement who was cut down in his prime by his political opponents.

But that does technically also qualify for Kirk. Also, for any number of Confederate General statues we'd thrown up across the nation in the wake of Jim Crow. Statues don't go to the "Good Guys", they go to the people whose movements have the wealth and the influence to build them.

If your history teacher hasn't conveyed that message, you might need to ask her why we've got Andrew Jackson's face on our money and a pedophile carved into Mt Rushmore. Monuments and statues aren't handed out objectively. They are propaganda works erected by the wealthy and powerful to venerate historical icons. Very real possibility we end up tearing down the MLK memorial under our current President in order to clear a space for these goons, sycophants, and freaks.