..."But there is some evidence as to where his party leanings were, including the observations of the Republican who was Martin Luther King's congressman. "I believe Dr. King was a Republican," Fletcher Thompson, who represented the Atlanta area in Congress from 1966-72, told Newsmax. "Most of the blacks in the late 1950s and at least up to 1960 were Republican. Our party was sympathetic to them and the Democrats were the ones enforcing 'Jim Crow' laws and segregation." http://www.newsmax.com/US/martin-luther-king-republican/2013/09/01/id/523296
They have been for a while. 1. Al Gore claimed his father voted for the civil rights act when he voted against it. 2. LA Times reported this last week. In a stunning historical error, Los Angeles Times reporters Kathleen Hennessey, Richard Simon, Alexei Koseff reported that "Democrats led the passage of civil rights legislation that marchers pushed for in 1963." In fact, Democratic Sen. Robert Byrd (D-WV), a former member of the Ku Klux Klan, filibustered the bill in an attempt to kill the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Republican Minority Leader Everett Dirksen (R-IL) saved the landmark civil rights law from defeat by galvanizing Senate Republicans for a cloture vote to stop the Democrat-led filibuster On June 9, 1964, the night before the historic cloture vote, the 68-year-old Republican stayed up late into the night typing a speech on twelve sheets of Senate stationery. The next day, Senator Everett Dirksen delivered his oration on the floor of the U.S. Senate just minutes before the final vote. The final tally: 71 to 29, with 27 of the 33 Republicans voting to defeat the Democrat-led filibuster. Democratic Majority Leader Mike Mansfield said, âThis is his [Dirksen] finest hour. The Senate, the whole country is in debt to the Senator from Illinois.â Two days after Dirksenâs speech, Roy Wilkins of the NAACP wrote Dirksen a contrite letter apologizing for his earlier attacks. âThe National Association for the Advancement of Colored People sends its thanks to you for your vote for cloture and for your final speech before the vote,â Wilkins wrote. âYour leadership of the Republican Party in the Senate at this turning point will become a significant part of the history of this century.â
Which is why we must never let the Koch brothers by this newspaper so they can't print their Tea Party lies!
I wouldn't be surprised if it actually wasn't a lie but what they had learned in public school. Wouldn't be surprised at all.
I'm sure they believed it and still do. I bet they think that any of this is right wing revisionist history, even that part about Bryd being a KKK chieftan. Heck, I bet half their staff is half convinced that the Holocaust is a lie.
+1 And btw, Robert Byrd used to call white trash "white niggers" on the nightly news/Larry King up until his 2010 death, but NO ONE flipped out over it. Why? Well, that's easy. He was a democrat... Lol! He did, however, wear a lapel pin of the US Constitution. Wonder what he'd say about Obama now? Hmmmm....