Martin Luther King Day is a day to celebrate the Republican Party. Martin Luther King Day is more aptly, Republican Party Appreciation Day.

King was a Republican mostly because he appreciated what the Republican Party had done for the inclusion and freedom of blacks.

The Republican Party was formed in 1860 partly to finish the work the founders attempted.

The founders tried to be one of the few countries in the world that would not enslave blacks and others. The nation could not be put together as a totally free nation so after many struggles to free the nation, the Republican Party ousted the Whig party for not doing enough to overcome the Democrat's resistance to freeing blacks. Lincoln and the Republicans "freed" the blacks in the Democratic Southern states; blacks in the North were already free.

King had to struggle against the Jim Crow laws enacted by the Democrats. King had to work to keep people safe from the threats of the Klu Klux Klan, organized by the Democrats to terrorize the black populations in the South. The late Sen. Robert Byrd, D., W.V., was a highly placed officer in the KKK hierarchy, with no condemnation from the press nor Democrats. The Republican Party best represented the wishes of black interests and their inclusion into society.

Interestingly, the NRA, America's first civil rights organization, helped blacks keep themselves legally armed against the local governments.

Adrian P. Heuermann

Carlyle