Uncle Tom Group Puts up Billboard in S.C.that says "Martin Luther King Jr. was a Republican"

• Number of black elected officials in South Carolina — 450
• Number of black Republican elected officials in South Carolina — 2
• 8,400 African-Americans voted in the 2008 S.C. Republican presidential primary. 
• 290,000 African-Americans voted in the 2008 S.C. Democratic Presidential primary.
  

Martin Luther King Jr. is turning heads near Interstate 26 in Orangeburg, featured on a billboard that claims the nation’s foremost civil rights leader was a partisan.

“Martin Luther King Jr. was a REPUBLICAN,” the sign reads.

Erected by a group called the National Black Republican Association, the sign has become one of the latest volleys in America’s disjointed conversation about race and history.

“I almost broke my neck trying to look at it,” said Katon Dawson, S.C. Republican Party chairman, who said he saw the advertisement Saturday while attending a conference in the area.

Though the billboard is “not in coordination with the South Carolina Republican Party,” Dawson said he applauds its message because, in this contentious election year, it highlights Republicans’ views that the Democratic Party traditionally takes blacks’ votes for granted.

“The South Carolina Republican Party is not going to concede any vote of any group in this state,” Dawson said.

Based in Sarasota, Fla., the National Black Republican Association goes much further in its criticism of the Democratic Party, calling it racist and socialist.

Frances Rice, a co-founder and chairwoman of the association, said Tuesday the Democratic Party is laden with racists, bred from its support of segregation. She said the party has misled the country by dangling dead-end social programs in the faces of black people.

“We’re trying to capture the attention of our fellow citizens, particularly African-Americans, and inspire them to go to our Web site and get the real facts, including the fact that Dr. Martin Luther King was a Republican,” Rice said. “That’s one way to capture the imagination of our citizens.”

The association’s Web site says its goal is to return African-Americans to their Republican Party roots by enlightening them about how the GOP fought for civil rights and is fighting for their educational and economic advancement.

“This is crazy,” said Joe Werner, executive director of the S.C. Democratic Party. “It is almost laughable that any believable person would think that the party of Lee Atwater and Karl Rove have the best interests of African-Americans at heart.”

Rice correctly points out that African-Americans historically were Republican voters. But critics point out that black voters abandoned the party in droves when civil rights legislation was signed into law by Democratic President Lyndon Johnson in the 1960s.

“My father was a Republican, so what does that mean?” asked U.S. Rep. Jim Clyburn, a Democrat who represents Orangeburg and arguably the most Democratic county in South Carolina. “The fact of the matter is that the Republican Party of today is not the same party of my father.

“Everybody knows that after 1948 in the Democratic Party, the Democratic primary was opened up for black participation. Those people who did not want to associate with blacks, they then left the Democratic Party. They then found refuge in the Republican Party. Everybody knows that, except for maybe the girl that wrote the press release.”

Rice claims she knew King and attended his church in Atlanta.

Dawson said he is unsure of King’s political party roots and unsure of how others can be so sure now.

“I would suspect Dr. King would be a Democrat today,” Dawson said. [MORE]