To his credit, Republican President Ronald Reagan made Dr. King’s birthday a federal holiday, ignoring how the Democrats had smeared Dr. King.
Hmmm well lets look at that shall we?
In 1964, Republicans nominated for President, Barry Goldwater- who infamously had opposed the 1964 Civil Rights Act.
Because of that Martin Luther King Jr. advised African Americans to not vote Republican
But some political choices are symbolic and more than symbolic. Following Goldwater’s vote, a young Colin Powell went out to his car and affixed a Lyndon Johnson bumper sticker. “While not himself a racist,” concluded Martin Luther King Jr., “Mr. Goldwater articulates a philosophy which gives aid and comfort to the racists.” Jackie Robinson, after attending the GOP convention in 1964, helped launch Republicans for Johnson.
And the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday? Who opposed it? Republicans
The idea of Martin Luther King Jr. Day as a holiday was promoted by labor unions in contract negotiations.[2] After King's death, U.S. Representative John Conyers (a Democrat from Michigan) and U.S. Senator Edward Brooke (a Republican from Massachusetts) introduced a bill in Congress to make King's birthday a national holiday.
Senators Jesse Helms and John Porter East (both North Carolina Republicans) led opposition to the holiday and questioned whether King was important enough to receive such an honor. Helms criticized King's opposition to the
Vietnam War and accused him of espousing "action-oriented
Marxism".
[4] Helms led a filibuster against the bill and on October 3, 1983, submitted a 300-page document to the Senate alleging that King had associations with communists. New York Senator
Daniel Patrick Moynihan declared the document a "packet of filth", threw it on the Senate floor and stomped on it.
[5
President Ronald Reagan originally opposed the holiday, citing cost concerns. When asked to comment on Helms' accusations that King was a communist, the president said "We'll know in thirty-five years, won't we?", in reference to the eventual release of
FBI surveillance tapes that had previously been
sealed.
[7] But on November 2, 1983, Reagan signed a bill, proposed by
Representative Katie Hall of Indiana, to create a federal holiday honoring King.
[8][9] The bill had passed the House of Representatives by a count of 338 to 90, a veto-proof margin.
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I love how the revisionist Right wingers both want to claim credit for the 1964 Civil Rights Act- which was proposed by Democrats, passed by a majority of Democrats, and signed into law by a Democrat- and Martin Luther King Jr. Day- which was opposed by Republicans and only signed into law when President Reagan was presented with a veto proof bill.