This is on the media. I'm Bob Garfield. This weekend, America celebrated the legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr.,

who wasn't just a political and spiritual leader, activist, and symbol, but especially for Black America,

a sort of prophet whose counsel was offered far beyond the scope of civil rights. As writer Michael Denzel Smith

observes, some of King's wisdom has not aged well. Brooke spoke with Smith last spring

after the 50th anniversary of MLK's assassination in Tennessee. He died just days after joining sanitation

workers in Memphis who were demanding living wages.

This was a year after King's call for an end to the Vietnam War,

four years after the passage of the Civil Rights Act,

and three years after the passage of the Voting Rights Act.

Ten years earlier, when he was still in his 20s,

Martin Luther King Jr. was a prominent preacher, an activist, a family man, and also an advice columnist for Ebony Magazine.

Writer Michael Denzel Smith, exploring the legacy of King as a role model of black masculinity for Atlantic Magazine,

found that readers asked the civil rights leader for advice about everything from race relations to marriage problems, and that the exchange is revealed as much about King as his readers.

There are people writing into Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., asking for typical advice column stuff

about their relationships.

They're like messages preserved in amber from the 50s.

I'm going to read one of these letters.

My husband is having an affair with a woman in our housing project.

He promised to stop, but he's still seeing her.

We have children, and I don't believe in divorce, but I cannot and will not share him.

What must I do?

And part of King's advice reads,

...