A Sept. 13 letter writer gave us a "short history lesson," stating that Martin Luther King Jr. was a Republican. This was offered as a repudiation of the charge that the Tea Party is racist (Letters, Sept. 3).
I'm surprised he didn't mention that the assassin James Earl Ray was a Democrat. In fact, many Southern African-Americans joined the Republican Party in response to the segregationist policies of Southern Democrats at the time. It was this group of Democrats that resisted the 1964 Civil Rights Act.
However, to compare those Democrats to present liberals makes as much sense as comparing Abraham Lincoln to Jesse Helms. A short history lesson: They were both Republicans.
Beecher Wooding
Haiku
