I found this Letter to the Editor of the Centeret County NC News Times from October 2012 and thought it would make a good post for black history month. It also reflects my opinions on the topic very well. It starts:
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was a Republican
From the National Black Republican Association Newsletter by Dr. Alveda C. King, niece of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., in “A Covenant with Life: Reclaiming MLK’s Legacy”: Dr. King states, “My grandfather, Dr. Martin Luther King, or ‘Daddy King,’ was a Republican and father of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. who was also a Republican. It should be no surprise that Dr. King was a Republican. Why? It was the Democrats who Dr. King was fighting and he would not have joined the Democrat Party.
In New York, anti-Civil War Democrats engaged in “Four Days of Terror” against the city’s black population July 13-16, 1863. These anti-Civil War Democrats verbally attacked Republican President Abraham Lincoln because he fought to free blacks from slavery and make his Emancipation Proclamation a reality — a proclamation that became the source of the Juneteenth celebration in black communities today.
If Democrats had left blacks alone at this moment in history, our nation would not be faced with racial divisiveness today. Instead, Democrats set for themselves the task of keeping blacks in virtual slavery.
It continues...