Billboard claims MLK Jr. was a Republican

[JonLP24]

Source: NBC Augusta

HOUSTON (NBC NEWS) - A billboard claiming that Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was a Republican is causing controversy in the Houston area.

The billboard was placed over the 4th of July weekend by a Houston-based conservative group.

Heated arguments broke out at the billboard site, between supporters and community activists who argue King's message rose above political affiliation.

"We're no longer going to take the issues of the African-American community for granted. We're not going to ignore their issues. We're not going to ignore their votes," says billboard supporter Apostle Claver T. Kamaur-Imani.



Read more: http://www.nbcaugusta.com/news/local/50624767.html

[WI_DEM]

1. I believe he was a republican prior to 1960

[brendan120678]

5. I'm pretty sure you are correct.

Most African Americans in that era were Republicans, especially since it was the Republicans, and not the (southern) Democrats, who were highly in favor of the Civil Rights bill.

[No Elephants]

20. If you check into civil rights measures after Reconstruction, Democrats

were always in the forefront.

As to the Civil Rights Act of 1964 in particular, Democrats are responsible for its passage. Yes, most Southern Democrats and Dixiecrats voted against it. But Democrats from other parts of the country voted for it in greater numbers than Republicans.

And all those Republicans who did vote for it may not have done so, had it not been for the assassination of JFK, whose baby the Civil Rights Act had been. In the aftermath of the assassination, JFK was so popular that all people had to hear was that "he" wanted it this way, which LBJ used to the max.

[provis99]

40. Nope. he never was.

The only record we even have of his voting habits is that he voted for LBJ in 1964.

[Wickerman]

2. Wow, was there one thing that King and the 60's GOP agreed on?

"The billboard is one of many that have sprouted around the country in recent months making the claim that King was aligned with the GOP."

anyone?

[zipplewrath]

16. Major distortion

The GOP likes to trot out this little canard every so often. It is an attempt to avoid the reality of their party for the last 40 years or so.

The reality:

In the 50's, and before, in the south, the southern democrats wouldn't let blacks vote, much less show up to party meetings. A black man who wanted to be politically active MIGHT join the republican party, or more likely the NAACP. The GOP at the time, the party of Lincoln, was more than willing to let these folks participate, to the degree that the southern democrats would allow since the democrats, who ran the south, wouldn't let the blacks vote. In the '50s when the civil rights movement was beginning to make progress towards overturning much of desegregation, there was a battle in the southern democratic party over the exclusion of blacks from the party in the south. Ultimately, the national party forced the southern states to include blacks in the party and at the convention. The GOP, and more importantly Goldwater, saw an opportunity to end the "solid south" for the democratic party and they started accepting severely racist former members of the southern democratics into the party. These folks had names like Strom Thurmond and Jesse Helms. It didn't work for Goldwater, but Nixon picked up on this and created the "southern strategy". The 60's republicans became a "safe" home for racists. This continued all through the '70s and into the '80s. Reagan got some heat early on for using some "coded" language that seemed to be calculated to appeal to them, making extenvise reference to "states rights" and the attacks on "welfare queens". (Alternately it should be noted that Reagan was also able to pick up the endorsement of Ralph Abernathy, MLK's right hand man). By the time, in '94, that Newt wins, huge numbers of "dixiecrats" finally leave the democratic party and join the republican party because they can do so and still maintain their "majority" seats on the committees, which is the only reason they were still democrats.

Basically, when the blacks weren't a polictical force at all, the GOP was relatively friendly to them. When they saw an opportunity to dump them overboard to bring in large numbers of southern white voters, they did. They did this JUST as the blacks were becoming politically viable. As such, the community tended to move towards the democrats because the democrats had become the party of labor unions, the Great Society, and anti-war, all issues that resonated with the emerging black community (although the union thing was kinda weird. Northern unions weren't the most "black friendly" institutions in the world, but in the south they fought the unions by convincing folks that unions were "trying to give your jobs to the ")

And the GOP is doing it again. Just as the hispanic community is starting to develop serious political chops, they keep finding ways to piss them off. They managed to put up some of the worst possible office holders in place under Bush (Gonzales) and both ignored and squandered help and advice from Mel Martinez. Their initial reaction to Sotomayor was so bad they had to back peddle, and they continue to hammer a point which may appeal to the white community, but is very understandable to the vast majority of the hispanic community. They've appealed to some of the worst elements of their shrinking base and ignored one of the fasted growing political groups in the country.

[bluestateguy]

3. He may well have been

About 1/3 of blacks were Republican before the LBJ/Goldwater election. And a majority of blacks were Republican prior to the New Deal.

MLK supported LBJ in 1964.

I don't see what the point of this is.

[No Elephants]

21. Please see Reply # 18.

[ck4829]

4. This is just more evidence that the Republicans have been taken over by the extremists

A group saying that someone was a part of their group after that person died is a trick used often by religious fundamentalists.

Like saying how Charles Darwin or Albert Einstein had a deathbed conversion, or fundamentalist Mormons saying they convert people after they die.

Coincidence? I think not.

[Botany]

6. For a long time many blacks were republicans .... remember Abe Lincoln?

The many of those old school southern democrats were vile racists and segregationists in 1960
some tried to walk out of the DNC over the seating of black delegates. Many of these democrats
became republicans over the next decades.

[No Elephants]

22. Yes, and please see Reply 18.

[Happyhippychick]

7. Oh goody. A billboard equivalent of "Stewardess, I speak jive".

The party of racism wants to lay claim to MLK's legacy. I'm disgusted.

[zbdent]

8. a conservative's stance generally seems to be defined by what they accept

20 years after what liberals got society to accept for 10 years ...

[wndycty]

9. The question is does anyone believe that Dr. King would have anything to do with TODAY's GOP?

Seriously, these guys are miserable.

[No Elephants]

23. I doubt that Dr. King had anyhing to do with the GOP then, either.

[YOY]

10. So were Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt.

Would they still be Pugs today after what Goldwater did to their party and Reagan sealed his pact with the religious right?

Fuck no.

[No Elephants]

27. Teddy R. resented and a billboard is not proof of anything.

In Lincoln's day, the Democratic Party was associated with the wealthier folk and the pro-slavery contingent. Things switched, as Obama silently demonstrated (IMO) when he mimicked (partially) Lincoln's train trip from Illinois to D.C. to assume the Presidency.

[Libertas1776]

11. I am sure he was

a Republican, like most blacks of the time, although that was changing thanks to the New Deal and Great Society etc. But to use someone like MLK jr for your own partisan political advantage is just disgraceful, not to mention the fact he was a Republican when being a Republican meant something a million miles away from the party's current crazy position.

[Downwinder]

13. I cannot remember Dr. King ever supporting Nixon.

but you should read this trash.

http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=16500

[madrchsod]

12. praise jesus! he found jesus in a houston parking garage!

http://getthepower.org/apostleclaver.html

blogspot for jesus

http://apostleclaver.blogspot.com/

youtube of jesus`s apostle

http://www.youtube.com/RagingElephantsOrg


jesus better save himself.....

[slackmaster]

14. Which puts a stark light on just how far the GOP has strayed from its traditional roots

They've lost their soul.

[Downwinder]

17. If you go back and look at Lincoln's papers he would be considered

a progressive, today.

[No Elephants]

24. Meh, there's racism in some of his stuff, too.

[ima_sinnic]

15. since they have NO ONE of any value or worth who is worth bragging about now

The fact that MLK Jr was a "republican" is so irrelevant it's a joke because of the way that party has changed over the last 25 years. It's also a sacrilege to associate someone of Dr. King's integrity, courage, and passion with the party of vile, scumsucking, perverted corporate ass-kissers, religious whackos, and "America First" xenophobic, racist dickheads. Do these morons really think that African Americans will be drawn to their sorry-ass, dying party with that billboard?

Martin Luther King Jr. was of no "party," he lived and died for rights for an oppressed minority. How many republican assholes will do that?

[No Elephants]

18. MLK, SENIOR was what was then referred to as "a Lincoln Republican." But,

he switched in gratitude after JFK called Coretta King to comfort her and ask if he could help after her husband was arrested. He told JFK he would vote Democratic for the rest of his life, based upon what JFK had just done for his daugh4er in law.

To the extent, if any, that MLK, Jr. was ever a Republican, I would be surprised if he stayed that way, especially after his father changed and JFK and RFK commenced their civil rights activism.


Edited to add more on SENIOR:

King Sr. played a notable role in the nomination of Jimmy Carter as the Democratic candidate for President in the 1976 election. After Carter's success in the Iowa caucus, the New Hampshire primary and the Florida primary, some liberal Democrats were worried about his success and began an "ABC" ("Anyone But Carter") movement to try to head off his nomination. King Sr. pointed to Carter's leadership in ending the era of segregation in Georgia, and helping to repeal laws ending voting restrictions that especially disenfranchised African Americans. With King's support, Carter continued to build a coalition of black and white voters and win the nomination. King Sr. delivered the invocation at the 1976 and 1980 Democratic National Conventions.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Luther_King,_Sr.

[OswegoAtheist]

19. I wish they'd make up their minds...

Oswego "billbored" Atheist

[Hippo_Tron]

28. ROFL Communist Training School

Reminds me of the "Barack Obama went to a Madrassa" crap.

[No Elephants]

42. Madrassa seems to me like an Anglicized corruption of the Arabic word that means "school." If I am

correct, then we can all say we attended a madrassa.

[Lost Jaguar]

34. I remember that billboard....

...from my childhood. I am a New Englander, but at Christmastime, my family would drive south to spend the holiday with my grandparents, who, like many old folks from Maine, retired to Florida. I guess I was about 10 or 12 when I saw it, but I remember it distinctly. Not seeing anything like it up north, I was dismayed and asked my folks about it. I believe they told me that folks in the south had very different opinions of some things.

Thanks for posting the picture. I've told my wife about that experience, and now I can show this to her.

[John Kerry VonErich]

35. Get this..

There are those who truely believe that MLK did some work for the government in exchange for civil rights laws and support. His supossed job? Undercover work at communist functions.

[crim son]

25. It must be very reassuring for people of color to know that

Houston repukes are no longer going to ignore their issues, now that there's been this revelation about MLK Jr. :sarcasm:

[No Elephants]

26. Just out of curiousity, on what do they base this claim? Anything?

[Xenotime]

30. More RW terrorist propoganda. They just make shit up.

[David__77]

29. He was a Republican, and an anti-capitalist as well.

He many times criticized the capitalist system and was obviously on the left of the political spectrum. The southern right-wing racist Democrats pushed many Black people into the only party in the region that didn't exclude them - the Republicans, who had no power there.

[No Elephants]

41. Again, any proof?

[sakabatou]

31. Republicans re-writing US history again.

[dflprincess]

32. Given this billboard is in Houston,

they might also want to consider "no longer taking the issues of the Hispanic community for granted" - and send the memo to the Republicans on the Judiciary Committee.

(And, isn't the bottom line of the billboard a tad offensive? "Leading America's 2nd emancipation" - what the hell do they mean by that?)

[theothersnippywshrub]

33. Here is what MLK, Jr. had to say in 1964 about the GOP.

I had no alternative but to urge every Negro and white person of goodwill to vote against Mr. Goldwater and to withdraw support from any Republican candidate that did not publicly disassociate himself from Senator Goldwater and his philosophy.

http://www.nationalreview.com/george/george071200.html

[Cha]

36. MLK may have been a republican but

he was no freakin' fascist and that's all they are now. Greed, Oligarchy, and Perversion.

Oh, and Lying Hypocrites.

[truthisfreedom]

37. This doesn't say anything about MLK. It does, however, show the shocking changes to the republican

party over the years. Imagine what kind of party it must have been for MLK to be a member prior to 1960. Look at it now. A bunch of science-hating freaks... a gang of fetus fetishists who want to enforce reproductive slavery.

[No Elephants]

44. For whatever his story truly was, Lincoln did sign the Emancipation Proclamation

and Southern Democrats were segregationists. Lincoln and Southern Democrats were both, however aberrations in their own respective parties, albeit stunning ones.

In other parts of the country, Republicans were supporters of "states' rights," which was code for racism. And the Solid South is now Republican, not Democratic.

So, no, I don't think the Republican Party was ever that wonderful. Please see also Reply ##'s 18 and 20.

Should both parties have done much better and much sooner? Absolutely. Apart from Southern Democrats and Lincoln, did Democrats do better and sooner than Republicans? Absolutely.

[sofa king]

38. When King was a Republican, these people were Democrats:

Jesse Helms, who worked on the campaign of Democratic segregationists Willis Smith and Richard Russell.

Strom Thurmond, Democratic Senator from South Carolina from the Civil War until 1964, when he changed parties.

Ronald Reagan, registered Democrat until the early 1950s.

Now do you see why King was a Republican?

[Frank Cannon]

43. As was George "Segregation Forever" Wallace

The fact of the matter is, the parties have changed quite a bit over the years.

This is a pretty useless and stupid ploy, but then, useless and stupid are pretty much all Republicans have left.

[provis99]

39. and these idiots think this will get them black voters?

It won't get them any black voters, but it will definitely lose them some white voters. Ha ha!

by the way, his son says he was never a Republican, so the billboard idiots are selling lies.