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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsMarin Luther King Jr. was a Republican!!! ??
Again my right wing fundie cousin posts on face book more out right lies. I wish she would just do a simple search to really see if what she posts is true or not. They (right wingers) just make this stuff up and this posting had over 40k comments... so it's been around awhile.
Along with MLK Jr's picture... this is what the post said:
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Did you know Martin Luther King Jr. was a devout Christian, a Baptist Pastor who taught Christian and family values and on top of that was a Republican?
Yes it is certainly true. In fact it was Democrats like Bull Connor, Al Gore Sr. and others in Congress that fought against the Civil Rights Act of 1964 while Republicans worked and voted to pass it. It was also Democrats like former Senator Robert Byrd who was the Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan during that time.
What would MLK Jr think of the Democratic party today and its platform built on anti-Christianity, victimhood and reliance on government from cradle to grave rather than self reliance?
LIKE and SHARE if Martin Luther King Jr was a GREAT AMERICAN!
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Instead of posting in the FB thread I just emailed her a more personal message along with a link to PolitiFact's article stating this was a "FALSE" claim.
Jeeeze! I am getting tired of continually having to correct these people.
YM
Drunken Irishman
(34,857 posts)Back then, the Republicans still had some shred of credibility and more importantly openly embraced its Lincoln roots. In fact, it wasn't until FDR that the Democrats made inroads with the black voting population and this was cemented, basically, out of the 60s.
Yes, moderate Republicans voted for civil rights ... but so did a great deal of Democrats. Those Democrats who opposed it? Many left the party and became ... Republicans.
Go figure.
Yooperman
(592 posts)That is what I wanted to make sure was understood.
I guess I could have put the link to PolitiFact with the article that they have posted with some research behind it.
Here is a quote that was from the article:
Kings son and namesake Martin Luther King III said:"It is disingenuous to imply that my father was a Republican. He never endorsed any presidential candidate, and there is certainly no evidence that he ever even voted for a Republican. It is even more outrageous to suggest he would support the Republican Party of today, which has spent so much time and effort trying to suppress African American votes in Florida and many other states."
http://www.politifact.com/tennessee/statements/2012/jan/23/charlotte-bergmann/another-republican-claims-martin-luther-king-jr-wa/
NYC Liberal
(20,138 posts)nanabugg
(2,198 posts)It was because they believed in the "party of Lincoln." Nothing more than that. And after the reconstruction era most white racists in the south were Democrats, after Kennedy and Johnson, they became Dixicrats and moved to the Republican party where the uber rich welcome them as fodder for wars, elections, and low paid workers. And it remains so today.
chknltl
(10,558 posts)As a God fearing Republican how could he not have voted for President Reagan.....both times too!
NYC Liberal
(20,138 posts)Do these people really not understand that the IDEOLOGY of the political parties has changed?
Yes Southern Democrats opposed the Civil Rights Act. CONSERVATIVE Democrats. Those Democrats are, for the most part, REPUBLICANS today.
I wonder what MLK would think of the racist, right-wing Republican Party that opposes economic equality, opposes unions, opposes workers, opposes the poor and middle class? MLK fought for economic justice and equality just as much as he fought for racial equality. In fact, he believed that the two went hand in hand.
Tell me, which of these quotes from Dr King fits in with today's GOPers? Name me one GOP leader who would brace a single one of them.
"An individual has not started living until he can rise above the narrow confines of his individualistic concerns to the broader concerns of all humanity. "
"Every man must decide whether he will walk in the light of creative altruism or in the darkness of destructive selfishness. "
"Life's most persistent and urgent question is, 'What are you doing for others?'"
"One who breaks an unjust law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for law."
"Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided men. "
"In our glorious fight for civil rights, we must guard against being fooled by false slogans, as 'right-to-work.' It provides no 'rights' and no 'works.' Its purpose is to destroy labor unions and the freedom of collective bargaining... We demand this fraud be stopped."
"The labor movement was the principal force that transformed misery and despair into hope and progress. Out of its bold struggles, economic and social reform gave birth to unemployment insurance, old-age pensions, government relief for the destitute and, above all, new wage levels that meant not mere survival but a tolerable life. The captains of industry did not lead this transformation; they resisted it until they were overcome. When in the thirties the wave of union organization crested over the nation, it carried to secure shores not only itself but the whole society."
"A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death."
"True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar; it comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring."
"As I have said many times, and believe with all my heart, the coalition that can have the greatest impact in the struggle for human dignity here in America is that of the Negro and the forces of labor, because their fortunes are so closely intertwined."
"You are demanding that this city will respect the dignity of labor. So often we overlook the work and the significance of those who are not in professional jobs, of those who are not in the so-called big jobs. But let me say to you tonight that whenever you are engaged in work that serves humanity and is for the building of humanity, it has dignity and it has worth."
"Property is intended to serve life, and no matter how much we surround it with rights and respect, it has no personal being. It is part of the earth man walks on. It is not man."
"The past is prophetic in that it asserts loudly that wars are poor chisels for carving out peaceful tomorrows. "
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Yooperman
(592 posts)The email to my cousin doesn't even discuss the mus-representation of who really backed the civil rights movement and how it was the Dixi-crats that were very prejudiced at the time and eventually even switched parties since the Republicans represented them better.
Anyway..thanks for the post... I love the quotes... he was such a great man... It just sickens me that the right wing would try to "claim" him as one of their own.
YM
NYC Liberal
(20,138 posts)It sure wasn't liberals.
Do they know why he was in Memphis when he was killed? He was there to support striking sanitation workers.
rbrnmw
(7,160 posts)Must be the season
brettdale
(12,389 posts)The GOp ran ad that was racist with two african american woman talking about how MLK was a republican, then they started to giggle in the ad, like dumb woman are suppose to (according to the gop) after the ad run his daughter or grandaughter, went to the media and said he wasnt.
Fox news then did a hit piece on the daughter.
no_hypocrisy
(46,270 posts)A lot of African-Americans registered as republicans when they were allowed to register b/c the Southern democrats were very Jim Crow. Republicans weren't necessarily civil rights but they were at least descendants of the Party of Lincoln.
Yooperman
(592 posts)This point of view was confirmed in the Politifact article. There seem to want to pick and choose what information they use. Never giving the complete story or history behind the reasons.
Thanks again,
YM
loyalsister
(13,390 posts)Things have certainly changed.
dembotoz
(16,864 posts)it was nice to be able to copy and paste the rebuttal
dembotoz
(16,864 posts)this damn facebook thing is going around
MinM
(2,650 posts)It covers his life especially during the early Civil Rights movement.
I never knew this, but he goes onto saying in the documtary that in 1960, MLK was arrested in Atlanta for a traffic stop but they trumped up charges and were going to sentence him to work on the chain gang.
Belafonte and others in the movement went to the 2 running Presidential candidates and Nixon ignored them, while the Kennedys did something. JFK made RFK go down to Atlanta and got MLK out of jail.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/101750488
Ben Stein has been another right wing propagandist who disingenuously pushes this MLK myth. During his regular segment on CBS Sunday Morning a few years ago Ben Stein made the claim that it was southern evangelicals that supported Martin Luther King Jr.
Of course what Mr Stein conveniently leaves out is that it was almost exclusively other southern black ministers that supported Mr King. The evangelical leaders of Ben Stein's ilk... Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson... et al., were very critical of MLK and opposed him at every turn.
Yooperman
(592 posts)Thanks for adding this to the equation. As I respond to my cousins response to me... I will kindly inform her of this event.
Peace...
YM
Viking12
(6,012 posts)By party
The original House version:[16]
Democratic Party: 15296 (6139%)
Republican Party: 13834 (8020%)
Cloture in the Senate:[17]
Democratic Party: 4423 (6634%)
Republican Party: 276 (8218%)
The Senate version:[16]
Democratic Party: 4621 (6931%)
Republican Party: 276 (8218%)
The Senate version, voted on by the House:[16]
Democratic Party: 15391 (6337%)
Republican Party: 13635 (8020%)
By party and region
Note: "Southern", as used in this section, refers to members of Congress from the eleven states that made up the Confederate States of America in the American Civil War. "Northern" refers to members from the other 39 states, regardless of the geographic location of those states.
The original House version:
Southern Democrats: 787 (793%)
Southern Republicans: 010 (0100%)
Northern Democrats: 1459 (946%)
Northern Republicans: 13824 (8515%)
The Senate version:
Southern Democrats: 120 (595%)
Southern Republicans: 01 (0100%)
Northern Democrats: 451 (982%)
Northern Republicans: 275 (8416%)
Yooperman
(592 posts)Thank you...
She responded to my message that she her post was not intended to be posted. She blamed it on her blackberry...
She still maintains that MLK would choose to be a Republican because he was a Christian.
I am in the process of messaging her back... thanks for the some ammo for me to use.
Peace..
YM
hifiguy
(33,688 posts)were trying to claim Robert Kennedy would be one of them today. Sure, and I will see flying cows circling outside my 16th floor office window this afternoon.
Yooperman
(592 posts)My cousin responded with a link to a very conservative site that had this long article where they twisted and manipulated the truth.
They continued to say that he was a Republican and that it was the only because of Republicans that the Civil Rights Act of 1964 passed.
She stated she thought he would still be a Republican today because he was a Christian!!
YM
spanone
(135,919 posts)former9thward
(32,121 posts)But he wasn't sure who he was going to vote for in that election (Eisenhower v. Stephenson). http://books.google.com/books?id=4ysIWgsSr9AC&pg=PA384#v=onepage&q&f=false
Yooperman
(592 posts)Democratic...but recognized that the Southern Democrats were racist.
YM
DemocratSinceBirth
(99,719 posts)After all it was the party of Lincoln. Martin Luther King Sr. was a Republican up until John Kennedy intervened during the 1960 election when MLK Jr. was arrested in Birmingham for staging a non violent protest.
dawg
(10,625 posts)Could you blame him?
dawg
(10,625 posts)Especially since I've heard so many of them in the past say that the day he was killed was a great day for America and that we should be celebrating that day instead of this birthday.
unblock
(52,440 posts)byrd was a member and a local leader of the kkk around 1946, but was never the grand wizard, and certainly wasn't a member during the civil rights era.
that doesn't excuse his association with the klan, as he himself eventually acknowledged.
but if they're going to toss in obvious lies about byrd, it casts even more doubt on the veracity of the main point about mlk
deutsey
(20,166 posts)WI_DEM
(33,497 posts)to champion Civil Rights they began to make the move in bigger numbers.