Grand Old Partisan reminds us today that Martin Luther King voted for the Republican presidential ticket, Dwight Eisenhower and Richard Nixon. King announced his vote during a public meeting in Ghana, where they were attending a presidential inauguration.

The following year, Vice President Nixon helped defeat the Democrat filibuster against the GOP’s 1957 Civil Rights Act.

[pictured: Coretta Scott King, Richard Nixon, Patricia Nixon and Martin Luther King in Ghana, 1957]

Martin Luther King’s niece Aveda King called Harry Reid’s racial comments sadly outrageous today.
FOX News reported:

The Rev. Al Sharpton, the Congressional Black Caucus and the NAACP all jumped to the defense of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid after his controversial remarks about President Obama, but the niece of Martin Luther King Jr. is calling Reid’s comments “sadly outrageous.”

“If Michael Steele or any other conservative had said anything like it, the remarks would be labeled racist and plastered over every available news outlet,” Alveda King said in a statement released Tuesday.

“What would my uncle and my father think, to hear such things from one of the most powerful leaders in the country? Their ‘beloved community’ is sorely threatened when racism rears its ugly head once again.”

Sen. Russ Fiengold did his own soul searching after Reid was quoted in a book saying candidate Barack Obama in 2008 could benefit from being light-skinned and not having a “Negro dialect” unless he wants one. Feingold told a local television station late Monday that he’s still mulling whether Reid should stay or step down as majority leader.

“I’m thinking about that and we’re going to be getting together as a caucus next week, and that topic will come up. I have not decided whether these comments merit that or not,” Feingold told ABC affiliate WISN. “They’re very unfortunate. They should have never been said. So I need to think about it.”

Meanwhile, Star Parker says Republicans are missing the point on Reid’s racist remarks.