The interwebs were burning up with reports yesterday that Martha Marcia Coakley had politicized a gathering meant to memorialize Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., by trolling for votes in her comments to the audience.
It seems like Democrats annually take this opportunity to brand themselves as the party of MLK, wrapping themselves in his memory as though he was one of the most consequential people ever to spring from Democratic soil.
The only problem with that image campaign is that Martin Luther King was not a Democrat. Needless to say, that little detail doesn’t sit very well with black Republicans.
You might not be familiar with the National Black Republican Association (NBRA) but they have a lot to say on this subject:
As we honor the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., let us pause to reflect on who he was and why his struggle to obtain civil rights for black Americans was necessary.First, Dr. King was a Republican until the day he died because he knew that the Republican Party, from its founding in 1854 as the anti-slavery party, championed freedom and civil rights for blacks. For details on the history of civil rights, see the NBRA Civil Rights Newsletter posted on the NBRA’s website.
Second, the nemesis of Dr. King’s valiant and historic campaign to end discrimination and gain equality for blacks was the Democratic Party, the party of slavery, segregation and the Ku Klux Klan. Led by former Klansman Robert Byrd, Democrats launched a despicable crusade to smear and undermine Dr. King. This relentless disparagement of Dr. King resulted in his being physically assaulted and ultimately to his tragic death.
MLK Day is supposed to be more of a celebration for a man that convinced many Americans to look at the internal, and not external as how to judge a person. To have politicized this for a candidate’s or party’s benefit is disgusting.