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Conservatives admired and supported King mostly after he died and they saw the political necessity. I can remember my parents in Mississippi saying he was less scary...though dad suspected his ties..as well as many freedom riders...even though my dad's family were movement sympathetic..which did not make them a lot of friends given my grandad was prominent...early 60s...by the time of King's death and his anti war involvement with the New Left..my dad was very anti King.

Reagan, Goldwater and Buckley...my favorite three ...are on record opposing King while he lived and Reagan only signed the holiday bill after Congress voted veto proof..but WFB did soften on King years after King was killed...perhaps in context with King's peers being more radical..true.

Charlton Heston was a Democrat liberal (as opposed to Dixiecrats who of course opposed King) when he marched with King.

Moderate GOP like Weicker supported King and Dirkson..slightly less moderate but not conservative by today's standards did too..to a degree..all that danged remedial stuff that without Dirkson's fold it would not have happened.

There were actually few social conservative GOP then...a few...they and the Dixiecrats were the social conservative bloc till the aforementioned Dirkson pulled away.

But of course..affirmative action was yet a dream, abortion was still illegal, the draft was on and gay marriage was what?...prayer in school still existed and the Gun Control Act was still a pipedream....EPA was non existent and there was much less Federal involvement in our lives.

It's only been since mid 90s that some moderate conservatives started to tout King as one of us (a notion I dismiss as ludicrous)

Krauthammer, Horowitz ..even Newt and of course history rewriter Beck make such claims.

But the evidence is simply quite the contrary.

But like Reagan said when he signed it...more or less...”I'm reluctant but the myth however wrong has become the perception and the new reality”

King is without peer, the sacred cow of American history...FDR and JFK being distant runners up.

King's two strengths which enable his mythology even to some conservatives were:

He was killed by a white supremacist...likely with conspiratorial support....the perfect victim

He was less obnoxious than his peers like Carmichael, Brown, Cleaver, X etc and spoke some cool speeches that the media has excerpted to death and made him acceptable to whites who feared the dangerous guys.

He may not have led a charmed life but his legacy sure as hell has.