Stand On The Word

Reverend Robert Spike was a significant and well-known campaigner in the 60s US Civil Rights Movement who was close to Martin Luther King, President Johnson, and many other historical figures. In 1966 he was threatened with being outed in an attempt to thwart his activism regarding black voting rights.
Two weeks after telling his opponents that he was willing to make that sacrifice – no small thing when it was still illegal, pre-Stonewall, and he had a family – he was found brutally murdered.
There was an immediate campaign to smear him saying he had been killed by a male sexual partner.
The threat of scandal was enough to keep the church and his supporters from pursuing a meaningful investigation into his death. He was effectively erased from the historical record…