re: #130 dog philosopher

iirc

rev martin luther king senior was a republican, of the old school from before fdr that remembered that it was lincoln’s republican party that was founded on banning slavery

the story is that when the candidate jfk got his son the rev doctor martin luther king junior out of jail, the father called up jfk and told him that he was a republican, but “he had a big old bag of votes” which would now go to jfk - and that he would overlook the fact that jfk was a catholic

jfk got off the phone and remarked - “who knew that mlk’s father would be an anti catholic bigot?”

but then he reflected, thinking of his own father, and added “well, i guess everybody has a father…”

That’s what I always heard too. Anyhow, I’ve been reading Nixonland and as I said, the Republicans by and large did everything they could to court the old Dixiecrat vote. Nixon got the support of the Southern Republican delegates by kissing Thurmond’s ass and promising not to enforce civil rights laws. I’ll be further frank here and say that Reagan was closer to George Wallace on civil rights issues than he was MLK as a candidate for California’s governorship and then as governor. The right claims to venerate and honor the memory of MLK now but at the time he was their enemy and they used him as such. The whole right wing backlash of the mid 60’s has a lot of background in GOP politcos taking advantage of middle class whites being angry at the national Democratic party becoming pro civil rights.