I challenge anyone to read any King bio and then say he was a communist.  All this talk of communism comes from the fact that King had a very close Jewish friend who was also a significant fund raiser for the movement.  This guy had attended a couple of communist party meetings when he was a student, years before he met King.  King, reluctantly, was forced to end any association with his friend because of the atmosphere of hysteria surrounding any Communist leanings.  He did so.  But it was common for white segregationists to label anyone and anything concerning the Civil Rights movement as communist.  In this city, the first attempt to name something after King (Northern Lights Boulevard) was sabotaged by people who thought King was a communist.