Witnesses Say Mitt Romney’s Father, Martin Luther King Marched Together
Witnesses have come forward to say they remember seeing Martin Luther King Jr. and presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s father marching together in 1963, Politico reported, after questions were raised about whether such a march ever happened.
The issue drew attention after Romney said during a major speech on faith in College Station, Texas, earlier this month that “I saw my father march with Martin Luther King.”
He later said he was being “figurative” during the address, and that he didn’t personally witness King with his father, former Michigan Gov. George Romney. But he stuck by his claim that they marched together.
Politico reported that the former Massachusetts governor is not the only one who remembers this.
One witness, Shirley Basore, 72, said she saw the two “hand in hand” in 1963 in Grosse Pointe, Mich. Another witness, Ashby Richardson, 64, said she was not more than 20 feet from the two of them.
Click here to read the Politico story.
Mitt Romney’s campaign provided documentation to establish that George Romney participated in a series of marches in support of King in his home state, but for days the campaign was unable to place the two together at the same march.
The GOP presidential candidate has stated several times that he is proud of his father’s leadership and the lessons he instilled in teaching his children about equal rights for all Americans.
The campaign provided several pages of excerpts from news articles and other sources detailing George Romney’s civil rights history.
The excerpts show he gave the keynote address in 1963 at a conference that touched off King’s “Freedom Marches” in Detroit. George Romney later made a surprise appearance and marched in an NAACP-sponsored rally in the summer of 1963 in Grosse Pointe, Mich.
The Boston Phoenix and Detroit Free Press earlier reported that the historical evidence does not place George Romney with King at any march.
The Free Press reported he did not attend King’s massive civil rights march in Detroit in June 1963, because it was on a Sunday and that he avoided public appearances because of his religion. The paper reported George Romney did participate in the civil rights march in Grosse Pointe shortly after but said King was not there.
Click here to read the Detroit Free Press article.
Click here to read the Boston Phoenix article.
Even though Mitt Romney on Thursday said he believes his father broke his self-imposed Sunday rule, New York Times clippings from June 1963 back up the Free Press account. A June 24 story said George Romney, who was Mormon, would not make appearances on Sunday and instead issued a proclamation and sent two personal representatives to King’s Detroit march.
A June 30 story said George Romney then led a “racially mixed group of 1,000″ through Grosse Pointe on June 29.
The accounts counter an excerpt from a 1967 book by Stephen Hess and David Broder that says the two marched through the “exclusive Grosse Pointe suburb of Detroit.”
Hess told the Detroit Free Press he couldn’t remember the source for the reference in the book, but he doesn’t think it matters to voters or Mitt Romney’s candidacy whether his father and King literally were side by side.
FOX News’ Shushannah Walshe contributed to this report.
Doesn’t anyone find it odd that reporters keep talking about Romney using his money to fund his campaign like it’s a bad thing? All the better in my opinion, shows he’s willing to invest in something he believes in (very patriotic) and no special interest groups to have to pay back favors to later on.
Also, since his own state backed him so well, if he did such a horrible job in Michigan it sure doesn’t look like it from the votes, and I’m tired of the whole flip flopping issue “oh he flip flops all the time like the abortion issue” . That’s the only one they can come up with and it’s been explained!
The last thing, the reason why he can’t get anyone in Washington to back him is because when you talk about needing a change in Washington, your basically saying get rid of the rif raf, their all afraid if he wins they’ll lose their cushy little jobs and actually have to work for a living!
Your “gotcha” is weak. I have to believe that someone, somewhere has a photo of a industrialized state GOP governor walking with or hand-in-hand with MLK. The testimony of two eye witnesses I find unconvincing. I am quite certain there were both a great many people IN the parade AND watching it.TV and newspaper coverage would certainly recorded such an historic moment, to say nothing of (Mich) Gov Romney’s campaign for the GOP presidential nomination. Such an event would certainly have been useful then.
Two points; (1) Mit now says he spoke figuratively and did not actually SEE the event. More than likely (giving the guy a break) he heard the story at some point and absorbed it. The question is: why did he have to push the story? He has a history of this sort of talk. Potential supporters have to ask themselves how comfortable they are with someone who stretches the truth. A certain segment never cut the Clintons slack when they stretched the truth (nor should anyone); so the same standards must be applied across the Board. Over and over Mitt has stretched reality. At some point that has to come home to roost.
(2) No one is asking the question of how such an honorable, educated,values-based man could belong to and endorse a religion that excluded blacks from priesthood (and essentially membership) and which publicly professed to beliefs about blacks that are utterly repugnant? Mitt may have cried when he heard the news that Mormons had a revelation and that blacks were human after all, but what did he do to change the policy?
As far as Fox news goes …try to be a step above “National Enquirer” It is a struggle for you, but a worthy effort.
You all know that Romney is the only real Republican running because liberals and the leftist media are so critical of him. They are critical of Romney because they don’t want to have to run their candidate against him. They would rather run against McCain or Huckleberry. Isn’t that obvious to everyone? Once McCain gets the republican nomination, the left will turn against him and point out what a hypocrite he is, like voting for an amnesty bill and saying it isn’t amnesty; he’s a liar. I don’t care if he is a war hero. What does that have to do with his running for president? He’s a democrat in sheep’s clothing; He wants to give social security benefits to illegals, he wants to give criminal trials to terrorists, he wants to limit free speech through campaign finance reform; he’s not a republican!!! He says he is the only candidate to support the surge in Iraq; he’s a liar! This guy’s more dangerous than Hillary; at least with Hillary we know what we would get–a return to the Carter years. But McCain is trying to fool Republicans into thinking he’s conservative. He’s not! Wake up before it’s too late. Do some research!
The Romney family is awesome, and the haters need to stop lying about them.
Mitt respected and idolized his dad who was governor of my state of Michigan. George Romney was a very caring and conciencious man who cared about civil rights and was often seen among the black communities in Detroit fighting for equal housing. Mitt Romney is perhaps the finest and one of the smartest GOP presidential candidates to come along in a long time. The Republican base needs to rally around and support this great man. GO MITT!
Those who claim to research this story in newspapers and other secondary sources and ignore and discount the first person accounts have forgotten proper sourcing.
I believe Mitt Romney when he says he remembers his Father marching with Martin Luther King in support of all people having equal civil rights. The mormons all believe this and it is part of Church doctrine and has been because Joseph Smith taught this, too. Mormons believe and teach that every person living has the right to think, make their own choices, since we all have a brain and God gave us the ability to use our brain and
make our own choices. This is called “FREE AGENCY”, and we all have it.