Plenty of buses from North Carolina, including some hosted by Americans for the Prosperous, will be heading to Washington, DC, for an August 28 rally. Conservative media man Glenn Beck will address the crowd from the Lincoln Memorial. It was, of course, on August 28, 1963, that Martin Luther King Jr. gave his “I Have a Dream” speech from the same steps that Beck will grace this weekend.
Because this shocking insult is not enough, AFP is billing its rally as a “Defending the American Dream Summit” featuring pictures of and paeans to former President Ronald Reagan.
That’s the Reagan who initially opposed making Martin Luther King’s birthday a holiday because of cost concerns. That’s the Reagan who agreed with Barry Goldwater that the 1964 Civil Rights Act was a mistake. After all, he said:
If an individual wants to discriminate against Negroes or others in selling or renting his house, it is his right to do so.
And it’s the same Reagan who launched his presidential campaign from Philadelphia, Mississippi, a town famous for little other than the killing of three civil rights workers.
It’s difficult to tell if AFP and its tea party allies are determined to insult the memory of King or if they are just completely ignorant of our nation’s fraught racial history.
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