Posted on 12/22/2007 7:04:49 AM PST by Leisler
Mitt Romney continued to cite a 1967 book reference as proof his father marched for civil rights with Martin Luther King Jr. even as the author insisted he has no evidence to back up the claim.
“In 1963, George Romney did participate in Martin Luther King Jr.’s ‘Freedom Marches’ in Grosse Pointe,” said Romney spokesman Eric Fehrnstrom yesterday, citing the book titled “The Republican Establishment: The Present and Future of the GOP.”
But Stephen Hess, a senior fellow of the Brookings Institution who wrote the book with Washington Post columnist David S. Broder, said the reference to Romney’s father, the late Michigan Gov. George Romney, marching with King was “meant totally symbolically.”
“The point we were making was that the issue of Mormonism had to do with its civil rights record. Did he walk with Martin Luther King? Today I have no idea,” Hess said.
The book, lacking footnotes and references, says in a chapter about George Romney, “He has marched with Martin Luther King through the exclusive Grosse Pointe suburb of Detroit and he is on record in support of full-coverage Federal open-housing legislation.”
But two members of the Grosse Pointe Historical Society said yesterday King never set foot in Grosse Pointe in 1963 and they woud have known if George Romney marched with him.
A member of the committee that invited King to appear at Grosse Pointe High School on March 14, 1968 - the only time historians say King appeared in the Detroit suburb - says George Romney wasn’t at the event and there was no “march” at that time.
“Dr. King was flown into Detroit and rushed into Grosse Pointe under heavy security, gave his address and then left very shortly thereafter,” said Russell Peebles, 88, who was a member of the Grosse Pointe school board’s Human Relations Committee, which invited King to speak. “George (Romney) was not in the audience. He certainly wasn’t on the stage.”
Romney claimed in his widely watched speech on religion earlier this month in College Station, Texas, and in a Sunday appearance on ‘Meet the Press’ that he “saw” his father march with the leader of the civil rights movement. In Iowa today, as his campaign tried to wriggle out of questions, Romney parsed definitions of the word “saw” and claimed his use of the term was “figurative.”
Larry Sabato of the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics called Romney’s parsing “Clintonian,” adding, “He just thought no one would ever check.”
It turns out that he may not have attended the Grosse Pointe march, but it certainly happened.
Well something happened,,44.5 yrs. ago.
I f Stephen Hess and David Broder....HISTORIANS...can use the term “symbolically”, then why can’t Mitt???
Did you know I saw the MLK speech on The Mall that didn’t happen? It was called the I Have a Dream speech. Not really. It didn’t happen. But I saw it. I think I was 2 years old. I think there’s video of it. That’s probably where I saw it.
He said/she said. The Grosse Pointe Historical Society dames say King was not there versus the two eyewitnesses who say he was. If it were one eyewitness, it could be explained away as projection after the fact. How do you account for two corroborating eyewitnesses?
With the cape still around her neck, Basore went outside and joined the parade.
“They were hand in hand,” recalled Basore, a former high-school English teacher. “They led the march. We all swung our hands, and they held their hands up above everybody else’s.”
She remembered the late governor as “extremely handsome.”
Until this week, that was just a vivid memory for a sweet retiree who now lives in Pompano Beach, Fla.
The march too place on a Sunday - June 23, 1963. I don't know many beauty salons that are open on Sunday now, in 2007. I'm quite sure there were absolutely NONE open on a Sunday in 1963!
So damned if he marched, damned if he marched not. You’re a real piece o’ work. This more than demonstrates that all you care about is damning Romney. And your “damned if he marched” argument is a dog that won’t hunt, as you sleight-of-hand acknowledge—you have to slip in there “post-civil-rights.” Even you don’t dare damm the marches for civil rights in and of themselves but you want to appear as if George Romney was somehow to blame for the failures of the LBJ Great Society.
Nice work if you can get it.
If Stephen Hess and David Broder can get it wrong, why can’t Willard?
At that time Martin Luther King was a Republican! Why? Because of brave and decent men like Gov. George Romney.
Sadly, Republicans seem obsessed with never winning back Black support--and this pathetic, putrid, shameful thread exemplifies the reason why. Instead of exulting in and cherishing our early civil rights heroes, we play stupid, divisive games of "gotcha" over candidate's words.
If this is the idiot light by which we choose sail our ship of hopes, we deserve to be torn asunder on the reefs of election year 2008.
No, you are confusing it with the Detroit march on June 23 which some press accounts have Romney also marching in but other accounts say he at the last minute decided not to march because it was on the Sabbath/Sunday. The Grosse Pointe march took place six days later. There’s no question Romney marched in it; the only question is whether MLK did also.
Nice try.
Come on, get real. Matter of fact, I haven't seen that other at the Funeral, George or any other Romney ever met or was with( in a physical sense ) King.
“They were hand in hand,” recalled Basore, a former high-school English teacher. “They led the march. We all swung our hands, and they held their hands up above everybody else’s.”
They were HAND IN HAND. HE WAS THERE.
That's awful.
Gotta admit though, it is better than the same spamming comment posted 29 times.
Absolutely right. The level of FRhatred for Mitt Romney exceeds that of any other Republican candidate. For good or ill, increasingly FReepers are becoming a FRinge group in the larger scheme of things, so this irrational hatred of Mitt Romney here may not harm him too much in the general election, unless these blind-haters succeed in landing the nomination for Rudy G. or McCain.
I’ve been through that on a thread on which you posted. You know the answer. You are a troll with this post.
Where you from, Missouri? :-)
The smart thing would have been for him to let it die. All I can say now is keep digging Mitt!
You don't know your political history. African Americans were Republicans because of the liberation of blacks from slavery, and because of the post civil war administration. It had nothing to do with the Romneys. It had to do with 300,000 Yankees getting killed. It wasn't until after the era of George Romney, and the construction of the welfare state and corruption of the black family that blacks became Democrats. You could say the George Romney was at the founding of the destruction of black America.
How, exactly, do you propose that we win the black vote? The vast majority of Republicans voted for every civil rights bill in the sixties, and the decade ended with 90% of blacks voting Democrat. Romney’s kindness was met with massive black rioting in Detroit and whites basically being run out of the city, which became a Democrat fiefdom that pretty much guarantees Democrat dominance statewide.
What’s Mitt gonna do to get us up to more than 10% of the black vote?
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