AS America moves from Martin Luther King Jr. Day to Black History Month, the time has come to ask if King’s style of leadership – the politics of protest – remains the appropriate model for the black community and black politics specifically.

Consider that, in King’s time, there were hardly any other prominent blacks – outside of sports and entertainment – that the average American might be able to name.

The protest model was an appropriate vehicle for black advancement because the community had been marginalized for centuries. Barriers both legal and social clearly blocked much black advancement.

King grew out of the tradition of the black church, using that platform to help force a national moral awakening. This, of course, led to the passage of the Civil Rights Act in 1964 and the Voting Rights Act in 1965.

And, in part as a result, two of the current president’s top advisers – Secretary of State Colin Powell and National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice – are black.

More significantly, blacks have taken leadership positions in corporate America. Stanley O’Neal now runs Merrill Lynch; Ken Chennault heads up American Express; Richard Parsons will be AOL Time Warner’s new CEO.

With these men walking the corporate streets of power on a daily basis, isn’t Jesse Jackson’s once-a-year Wall Street Project, whose ostensible purpose is to try to link corporate America with black America, a bit of a sideshow? (Notably, not one of the three men attended the Jackson event last week.)

Consider, too, the man who means to follow in Jackson’s footsteps. While the Rev. Al Sharpton found himself on the sidelines as the 2001 New York City mayoral election came to a close, Mike Bloomberg got nearly a quarter of the black vote.

A major reason for that was endorsements from black businessmen – including Black Enterprise’s Earl Graves, Essence magazine’s Ed Lewis and, remarkably, Inner City Broadcasting’s Percy Sutton, who had never before endorsed a Republican.

The symbolism couldn’t have been more powerful: The controversial black minister who’s had national Democrats coming to kiss his ring sat on the sidelines, while the black businessmen jumped into the fray – to endorse a Republican businessman.

And the Republican won. (Hmm. Democrat gubernatorial hopeful Andrew Cuomo may have been wise to get the backing of hip-hop mogul Russell Simmons.)

King dreamed of a moment when all Americans would be judged by the content of their character, not the color of their skin. Now African-Americans in business are showing the reality of King’s dream. And the protest model he crafted is proving obsolete, trumped by a culture of achievement.

That’s not to say that there aren’t many major hurdles for black America to overcome, but it’s much harder to make the case that institutional racism is an insurmountable barrier. Nor does it mean that business leaders can fully replace the church in the black community.

But African-Americans’ place in society has clearly changed. And – notwithstanding the bipartisan parade to Sharpton’s House of Justice yesterday – politicians of every hue and ideology should recognize that.E-mail: rgeorge

@nypost.com