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txdemsftw

(461 posts)
Fri Oct 26, 2012, 09:06 AM Oct 2012

"Martin Luther King Jr was a Republican"

Just heard on the radio that new billboards are being put up in "Predominately black communities in the Austin, San Antonio, and Dallas areas to stress the important fact that MLK Jr was a Republican so YOU should vote Republican too."

My gosh, they are REALLY reaching and it is laughable. Luckily, there has already been a huge back lash and people are demanding that these billboards be taken down.

Some of these Repukes are really disgusting.

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"Martin Luther King Jr was a Republican" (Original Post) txdemsftw Oct 2012 OP
He was... S_E_Fudd Oct 2012 #1
If MLK was alive today..... Tommy_Carcetti Oct 2012 #2
The Republican Party of the 1960s is not the Republican Party of today cherish44 Oct 2012 #3
I agree txdemsftw Oct 2012 #5
Yep! Need to be sure that message comes thru loud and clear to the people patricia92243 Oct 2012 #8
Barry Goldwater, anyone? The 1968 Conventions? Remove the rose-colored glasses. WinkyDink Oct 2012 #14
A correction on your logic. bluestate10 Oct 2012 #47
Abraham Lincoln was a republican lpbk2713 Oct 2012 #4
it is totally irrelevant to 2012. things were different back then graham4anything Oct 2012 #6
In recent decades the liberal party was not partcularly liberal. It helped elect D'Amato. libinnyandia Oct 2012 #19
he's interesting-do you know he stood next to Kristen G. when she was sworn in? graham4anything Oct 2012 #24
No. He actually wasn't too bad comared to most of the present GOP senators. libinnyandia Oct 2012 #35
this is why they want the shcools to stop teaching about the Civil Rights Movement Enrique Oct 2012 #7
We should turn this into a teachable moment, why the South went from Dem to Repug. reformist2 Oct 2012 #9
If so, it was before the racist Dixiecrats joined the GOP deutsey Oct 2012 #10
We didn't leave the Republican Party, the Republican Party left us. nt MrScorpio Oct 2012 #11
African-Americans in the Jim Crow South were ALL Republicans in the '50's. Zen Democrat Oct 2012 #12
This ^ sadbear Oct 2012 #18
The republican sheep have no sense of history justiceischeap Oct 2012 #13
It PROBABLY has to do with the economy, Civil Rights, and equality. WinkyDink Oct 2012 #16
Which ties into economy, civil rights & equality. nt justiceischeap Oct 2012 #20
Big whoop. So were my parents and grandparents, but the modern GOP LeftinOH Oct 2012 #15
Hmm.. txdemsftw Oct 2012 #17
At that time EC Oct 2012 #21
He wouldn't have been killed by a hired gunman Risen Demon Oct 2012 #22
Well I guess Republicans are Communists then because they keep telling me MLK was a commie. denverbill Oct 2012 #23
LOL AspenRose Oct 2012 #27
MLK was against the Vietnam War. AspenRose Oct 2012 #25
sigh hiphopnation Oct 2012 #26
The backlash you mentioned is good indication of how intelligent the readers of these billboards are We People Oct 2012 #28
You are correct Risen Demon Oct 2012 #32
If republicans were straight and honest, they would say today, fuck the racists in their party, bluestate10 Oct 2012 #46
Jack Kennedy called Mrs. King. (Richard Nixon did not.) Octafish Oct 2012 #29
And politifact sez--False Maeve Oct 2012 #30
He was, then the Dems went to the Republican Party nadinbrzezinski Oct 2012 #31
Shame on them for trying to con people like this, CheapShotArtist Oct 2012 #33
Yeah, so was Lincoln. Iggo Oct 2012 #34
If Martin Luther King belonged to the party of Jesse Helms . . . Jack Rabbit Oct 2012 #36
Jesse Helms and Strom Thurman were democrats at one time. bluestate10 Oct 2012 #42
Reagan was a Democrat. GeorgeGist Oct 2012 #37
I think that is true madokie Oct 2012 #38
They tried this same crap last election cycle standingtall Oct 2012 #39
That MLK was a republican doesn't surprise me. bluestate10 Oct 2012 #40
Strom THurmond, Jesse Helms etc use to be Democrats JI7 Oct 2012 #41
LaRouche claims that Edgar Allen Poe and Harriet Tubman were CIA spies for the US Government. vaberella Oct 2012 #43
Ever notice how Republican marketing always assumes the voter is a complete moron? Marr Oct 2012 #44
do not forget they live in a bubble,when you wear ruby eyeglasses everything is red n\t -LOKI -BAD FOR YA Oct 2012 #49
Considering what the Democratic Party in the south was at the time....it's no surprise. Tierra_y_Libertad Oct 2012 #45
The suffragettes were Republican loyalsister Oct 2012 #48

S_E_Fudd

(1,295 posts)
1. He was...
Fri Oct 26, 2012, 09:08 AM
Oct 2012

Until Richard Nixon turned his back on him as a part of the Republican Southern strategy and the Kennedy's began supporting his efforts...

Tommy_Carcetti

(43,080 posts)
2. If MLK was alive today.....
Fri Oct 26, 2012, 09:08 AM
Oct 2012

....there would be no end to the attacks against him by Republicans and conservatives. You think they are rough on Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton? It would be nothing compared to what they would say about MLK.

cherish44

(2,566 posts)
3. The Republican Party of the 1960s is not the Republican Party of today
Fri Oct 26, 2012, 09:09 AM
Oct 2012

I'm pretty sure he would not be a Republican if he were alive today

patricia92243

(12,590 posts)
8. Yep! Need to be sure that message comes thru loud and clear to the people
Fri Oct 26, 2012, 09:18 AM
Oct 2012

that are being targeted by the Republicans of today.

bluestate10

(10,942 posts)
47. A correction on your logic.
Fri Oct 26, 2012, 04:57 PM
Oct 2012

Goldwater ran after the civil rights legislation of Kennedy and Johnson. Goldwater ran after southern democrats turned lockstep into republicans and the south went heavily republican to spite the fact that democrats pushed for civil rights for negroes. Goldwater was the first manifestation of the modern republican party.

 

graham4anything

(11,464 posts)
6. it is totally irrelevant to 2012. things were different back then
Fri Oct 26, 2012, 09:11 AM
Oct 2012

and in NYC there were 4 parties
liberal
conservative
dem
repub

and the liberal/conserv. was actually just as or more important

that's why one has to be careful with labels

Enrique

(27,461 posts)
7. this is why they want the shcools to stop teaching about the Civil Rights Movement
Fri Oct 26, 2012, 09:17 AM
Oct 2012

anyone who would buy the suggestion that MLK Jr. might support today's GOP in any way, they know nothing about MLK Jr. or about today's GOP.

reformist2

(9,841 posts)
9. We should turn this into a teachable moment, why the South went from Dem to Repug.
Fri Oct 26, 2012, 09:18 AM
Oct 2012

I'm afraid a lot of people don't know the story behind how the South became the base of today's Republican Party. It's a pretty ugly story.

Zen Democrat

(5,901 posts)
12. African-Americans in the Jim Crow South were ALL Republicans in the '50's.
Fri Oct 26, 2012, 09:26 AM
Oct 2012

That's because the Democrats were the Old South Jefferson Davis KKK Democrats. Kennedy and LBJ turned that around and the racist Dems became Republicans en masse. Remember, Goldwater won a big chunk of the South in 1964, George Wallace won it in 1968, and Nixon and Republicans have had it since.

Old labels do not apply.

justiceischeap

(14,040 posts)
13. The republican sheep have no sense of history
Fri Oct 26, 2012, 09:31 AM
Oct 2012

For example, when anyone brings up racism, they counter that Southern Democrats supported slavery in the civil war era and it was the repubs that wanted to end it. They refuse to acknowledge that their party and the Democratic party have virtually switched places when it comes to social politics. Bill Maher is certainly right about the republican bubble.

And black voters are not going to see these billboards and be like, "Oh, so I gotta vote for the man that lies all the time." From my interactions with my african-american co-workers, Mitt is not going to get away with this. They DO NOT like him. It probably has a lot more to do with his religion than anything else.

LeftinOH

(5,342 posts)
15. Big whoop. So were my parents and grandparents, but the modern GOP
Fri Oct 26, 2012, 09:36 AM
Oct 2012

is an in-name-only entity which conveniently -and disingenuously- claims the long history of the Republican party as their own. Deceitful bastards.

txdemsftw

(461 posts)
17. Hmm..
Fri Oct 26, 2012, 09:39 AM
Oct 2012

apparently, these signs were sponsored by RagingElephants- a black conservative group... and many have already been taken down 20 days ahead of schedule (they were supposed to be up for a solid month).

GOOD!

Risen Demon

(199 posts)
22. He wouldn't have been killed by a hired gunman
Fri Oct 26, 2012, 10:16 AM
Oct 2012

Not today. Instead, it would be a religious right fanatic out in the open who was told by a powerful religious right pundit that "God has given you the task to kill this man". The reason? The same: for quoting truth and wisdom against power and corruption.

hiphopnation

(3,100 posts)
26. sigh
Fri Oct 26, 2012, 10:59 AM
Oct 2012

Besides it being irrelevant, it's simply not true.

David Garrow — author of Bearing the Cross: Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, which won the 1987 Pulitzer Prize for biography — advised against assigning King to either party. "It's simply incorrect to call Dr. King a Republican," Garrow told us.

However, he said he wouldn't call King a Democrat, either, because he had "very positive feelings" about Republican Richard Nixon in the late 1950s and "extremely positive feelings" about Republican Nelson Rockefeller, the New York governor who later served as vice president. Also, Garrow said, King became "a very harsh critic" of Democratic President Lyndon Johnson over his escalation of the Vietnam War and "wouldn't necessarily have backed (Democratic presidential nominee) Hubert Humphrey in '68 had he (King) lived."


I can't believe we're still debating this. This is clown shoes, man!

edited to add link:
http://www.politifact.com/texas/statements/2011/jan/17/raging-elephants/houston-group-says-martin-luther-king-jr-was-repub/

We People

(619 posts)
28. The backlash you mentioned is good indication of how intelligent the readers of these billboards are
Fri Oct 26, 2012, 11:38 AM
Oct 2012

By and large, they won't be fooled - and the rethugs are wasting their $ on such advertising. This advertising isn't false per se, but it has an untrustworthy purpose.

If rethugs played it straight and honest, they would lose and be buried in a colossal landslide.

Risen Demon

(199 posts)
32. You are correct
Fri Oct 26, 2012, 01:21 PM
Oct 2012

Part of the Southern Strategy and the adoption of Christianity into the right enabled the rethug party to make justifications for such horrible actions. The duped christian voters will always accept evil, as long as it's wrapped in an American flag, holding a bible.

bluestate10

(10,942 posts)
46. If republicans were straight and honest, they would say today, fuck the racists in their party,
Fri Oct 26, 2012, 04:53 PM
Oct 2012

fuck the women haters in their party, fuck the anti-hispanic people in their party. If republicans were straight and honest, they would say today that they were going to embrace a brand of fiscal conservatism where corporations didn't get welfare, struggling people that need help get welfare. Of course, republicans would lose the election horribly, the House would go almost 100% democrat and the Senate would have nearly 100 democrats over a couple of election cycles. But by throwing out the worst elements of the republican party, the party would save itself and one day return to prominence as a serious party.

Octafish

(55,745 posts)
29. Jack Kennedy called Mrs. King. (Richard Nixon did not.)
Fri Oct 26, 2012, 11:50 AM
Oct 2012

JFK helped him change his mind. Just prior to the 1960, then-Sen. John F. Kennedy risked alienating the conservative Southern Democrats by talking to Coretta Scott King while Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. rotted in a "backwoods Georgia jail." The photo below was taken when Dr. King visited President Kennedy at the White House.



Robert Kennedy-His Life by Evan Thomas

EXCERPT…

(Robert) Kennedy seemed to fret about what to do as John Seigenthaler drove him to the airport early that afternoon. He was flying to New York for a campaign event. Maybe, he told Seigenthaler, he should take the heat off his brother and act as a "lightning rod" by calling the judge himself. Seigenthaler, whose phone had been ringing all morning with calls of angry southern politicians protesting JFK's call to Mrs. King, urged Bobby to stay out of it. Bobby wearily agreed.

The next day, a press aide told Seigenthaler that the wires were reporting that the judge had released King -- at the intervention of Robert Kennedy.

Can't be true, Seigenthaler said; Kennedy had assured him he wouldn't call the judge. But it was true. Seigenthaler called Kennedy, who sheepishly disclosed the call. He said that, on the plane to New York, he had got to thinking about the whole matter. It was "disgraceful...It just burned me up," Kennedy said. "It grilled me. The more I thought about the injustice of it, the more I thought what a son of a bitch the judge was." So Kennedy called the judge and gave him a lecture on the constitutional right to make bail, and the judge agreed to release King. Later, speaking with Wofford, Kennedy said he told the judge, "If he was a decent American, he would let King out by sundown. I called him because it made me so damn angry to think of that bastard sentencing a citizen to four months hard labor for a minor traffic offense."

The impact of JFK's call to Mrs. King and RFK's intervention with the judge was immense. Daddy King, Martin Luther King's father, an extremely influential Baptist preacher, openly shifted his endorsement from Nixon to Kennedy. The Kennedy campaign brilliantly exploited the symbolism of phone calls with a samizdat campaign in the black community. Careful not to tout the Kennedy-King connection in the popular mainstream press, lest southern voters take umbrage, the Kennedy campaign published hundreds of thousands of leaflets and handbills that were distributed at black churches and bars. On one side, a flyer read: "Jack Kennedy called Mrs. King" On the other side it said: "Richard Nixon did not." Many political analysts believe that this PR offensive decided the election. In a half-dozen states in the East and Midwest carried by Kennedy by very narrow margins on election day, black turnout made the difference. Richard Nixon's chauffeur understood. "Mr. Vice-President," he told his boss after the election, "you know I had been talking to my friends. They had been all for you. But when Mr. Robert Kennedy called the judge to get Dr. King out of jail -- well, they just all turned to him."

CONTINUED…

Excerpted from "Robert Kennedy: His Life” by Evan Thomas, pages 101-102.

 

nadinbrzezinski

(154,021 posts)
31. He was, then the Dems went to the Republican Party
Fri Oct 26, 2012, 12:38 PM
Oct 2012

you know the Dixiecrats?

Technically they are not lying.

History, I know

CheapShotArtist

(333 posts)
33. Shame on them for trying to con people like this,
Fri Oct 26, 2012, 02:11 PM
Oct 2012

but I'll give today's RWers credit for one thing: they are at least making a teeny-weeny bit of progress in regards to their racism, compared to the RWers of the MLK era. Back in the day, RWers were proud and open about it. Today, most of them don't seem to be as flamboyant, and are actually using prominent black figures to attract minorities to their side--something that conservatives of yesteryear would've never thought of doing.

Jack Rabbit

(45,984 posts)
36. If Martin Luther King belonged to the party of Jesse Helms . . .
Fri Oct 26, 2012, 03:35 PM
Oct 2012

. . . then I am a retired Kamikaze pilot.

bluestate10

(10,942 posts)
42. Jesse Helms and Strom Thurman were democrats at one time.
Fri Oct 26, 2012, 04:40 PM
Oct 2012

The southern democratic party of King's early manhood was an extreme racist party. All of the powerful southern leaders were democrats. Northern democrats embracing integration is what turned the southerners into republicans. You realize that George Wallace was running as a democrat when he was shot in Maryland don't you?

madokie

(51,076 posts)
38. I think that is true
Fri Oct 26, 2012, 04:35 PM
Oct 2012

1956 republicon party platform: http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=25838

I used to wonder why my father was a registered republicon until recently when I ran across the 1956 republiCON platform. After reading it I realized that the puke party of today and of the late '50s and early '60s are completely different.
I believe it was tricky dick who foisted the present mind set of the puke party upon us.

standingtall

(2,785 posts)
39. They tried this same crap last election cycle
Fri Oct 26, 2012, 04:35 PM
Oct 2012

Pretty stupid considering Doctor Kings own children are still alive, and Coretta wrote many books to debunk that garbage.

And yes if he were still alive today conservatives would be calling him every name in the book.

bluestate10

(10,942 posts)
40. That MLK was a republican doesn't surprise me.
Fri Oct 26, 2012, 04:36 PM
Oct 2012

The majority of Black people voted for Richard Nixon in 1960. Black people voted nearly 100% republican up until FDR. Power politicians of King's younger days were racist democrats, so it makes sense that any thinking person that hated what the south was then would register as a republican, because they were going nowhere as a democrat then.

The republican party of today is what the southern democratic party of King's youth was, a racist party out of step with reality.

vaberella

(24,634 posts)
43. LaRouche claims that Edgar Allen Poe and Harriet Tubman were CIA spies for the US Government.
Fri Oct 26, 2012, 04:43 PM
Oct 2012

Every group has it's far reaching clowns.

However...the Republicans back in the day were far far far far far more left-leaning than they are today. Even more left-leaning than left-leaning today. Especially if Lincoln means anything.

 

Marr

(20,317 posts)
44. Ever notice how Republican marketing always assumes the voter is a complete moron?
Fri Oct 26, 2012, 04:45 PM
Oct 2012

Anyone with a marginal awareness of recent history knows that the racist Democrats of the south all turned Republican en masse just a few decades ago, in response to Civil Rights legislation.

loyalsister

(13,390 posts)
48. The suffragettes were Republican
Fri Oct 26, 2012, 05:04 PM
Oct 2012

Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton were republicans, but they sure as hell would not be today. It seems that they were opposed to abortion. But, I think their values regarding women's rights would definitely overcome those leanings.

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