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ORIGINAL: todd_t

Dr. King's father was a lifelong Republican, but his son never declared an official political affliliation to either party despite voting for JFK in 1960, and LBJ in 1964.

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

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/18/AR2006101801754.html

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She campaigned for very progressive issues, including LGTB issues -so if you want to go by memebers of his family to determine his own political affiliation, it seems you have options from each side.

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ORIGINAL: Jhud

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She campaigned for very progressive issues, including LGTB issues -so if you want to go by memebers of his family to determine his own political affiliation, it seems you have options from each side.

I don't even want to know what sort of dream that might have cause MLK to have.

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I think all this speculation is kind of pointless in the end.

Those were different times, and it's impossible to say, one way or another, what Martin Luther King would have done had he lived.

Perhaps he would have gone the way of his wife, or perhaps he would have gone the way of his neice. All we know of him is specific to the historicity of the time in which he lived, so arguing that King would or would not have supported X issue today is kind of pointless.

I do often wonder what he would have become had he not been assassinated. I think he was probably smart enough to know that getting into politics would basically dampen his message and turn him into what Jesse Jackson has become today. But again, it's impossible to say.

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ORIGINAL: Jhud
It's sort of like Romeo and Juliet - Shakespeare practically had to kill them off, because if he hadn't you would have Romeo some years later sitting in his recliner watching the tube, yelling, "Juliet, get another beer!".

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ORIGINAL: todd_t

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That was before JFK and his brother decided to wire tap Dr. King's phone lines.

At the behest of J. Edgar Hoover, the most paranoid man in American history. Although I agree, the Kennedys could have just shot Hoover down, and said no to the wire taps.

Gee, wire taps. Who does that remind me of?

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And I doubt King knew that Johnson commonly used the N word.

LBJ was a hayseed hick, no doubt.

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ORIGINAL: todd_t
LBJ was a hayseed hick, no doubt.

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ORIGINAL: JimboFletch

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ORIGINAL: todd_t
LBJ was a hayseed hick, no doubt.

Typical Southern Democrat, no less. Just the sort that Dr. King grew up seeing "put blacks in their place when they get uppity."

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ORIGINAL: RichLP

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ORIGINAL: Stephanos
I dont know if Dr King "was" a republican, but I have little doubt that he would be one today. The whole idea of Affirmitive Action is an affront to everything Dr King stands for. In his famous speech he said "I have a dream that one day people will be judged on the content of their character NOT on the color of their skin." The idea of giving someone a job, BECAUSE of their skin color, or a spot in school BECAUSE of their skin color was EXACTLY what Dr King was against.

I'm not exactly a fan of AA either... but, back then at his time, weren't blacks facing a lot of obstacles to even be able to COMPETE with whites at the workplace or in the classroom? Just food for thought.

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From now on, the Republicans are never going to get more than 10 to 20 percent of the Negro vote and they don't need any more than that... but Republicans would be shortsighted if they weakened enforcement of the Voting Rights Act. The more Negroes who register as Democrats in the South, the sooner the Negrophobe whites will quit the Democrats and become Republicans. That's where the votes are. Without that prodding from the blacks, the whites will backslide into their old comfortable arrangement with the local Democrats."

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poor_People%27s_Campaign
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_luther_king#Opposition_to_the_Vietnam_War

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ORIGINAL: Jhud

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poor_People%27s_Campaign
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_luther_king#Opposition_to_the_Vietnam_War

You do realize the Vietnam war was started by a Democratic administration

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and those poor in the south didn't benefit from their years of Democratic governments?

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From now on, the Republicans are never going to get more than 10 to 20 percent of the Negro vote and they don't need any more than that... but Republicans would be shortsighted if they weakened enforcement of the Voting Rights Act. The more Negroes who register as Democrats in the South, the sooner the Negrophobe whites will quit the Democrats and become Republicans. That's where the votes are. Without that prodding from the blacks, the whites will backslide into their old comfortable arrangement with the local Democrats."

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I do. Was the anti-war movement a Republican plank?

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ORIGINAL: JimboFletch

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I do. Was the anti-war movement a Republican plank?

It was the main reason Richard Nixon was swept into office.

And it was the cause of the huge protests during the DNC in Chicago in 1968. For eight days, protesters and police battled for control of the streets of Chicago, whilst the Democratic Party met at the convention.

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I do. Was the anti-war movement a Republican plank?

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I was also under the impression that minimum wages and the rest of the stuff in the Poor People's Campaign didn't really jive with standard Republican boilerplate.

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Was the anti-war movement a Republican plank?

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ORIGINAL: DaveW

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Was the anti-war movement a Republican plank?

In 1968 (during the Tet Offensive) Nixon promised if elected to get us out of the war before he left office. He slowly brought the troop numbers down until the final pullout in 1975. He almost kept it. Ford got to finish the job.