Perhaps the greatest injustice of the misplaced idolatry of King is the failure to acknowledge the unknown foot soldiers who enabled his leadership. African American resistance long preceded the world's introduction to the voice of Martin Luther King Jr., and while he provided vision and articulation, he was a product rather than a creator of the black organizing tradition. Like the DJ who built hip-hop culture only to be replaced by a rapper with a DAT tape, there are hundreds of thousands of grassroots organizers and plain folks who paid the price of the ticket.