McCain Gives Mea Culpa in Memphis Over Vote Against King Holiday
John McCain walks past a portrait of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in the National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis, Tenn., Friday. (AP Photo)
Forty years after Martin Luther King Jr.’s death, John McCain sought to make amends Friday for originally opposing the creation of a national holiday in honor of the civil rights leader.
In a driving rain, the presumptive Republican nominee stood on the Memphis balcony of Lorraine Motel, where King was assassinated, and told the gathered crowd he had made a “mistake.”
“We can be slow as well to give greatness its due, a mistake I myself made long ago … when I voted against a federal holiday in memory of Dr. King. I was wrong, I was wrong,” McCain said.
The presumptive Republican presidential nominee withstood jeers — and later criticism from the Democratic Party — for trying to take back his 25-year-old position on the holiday. He also received encouragement from someone in the crowd who said, “We all make mistakes. We all make mistakes.”
The Southern Christian Leadership Conference, founded by King, invited all the presidential candidates to attend its ceremonies Friday. Hillary Clinton didn’t attend but visited the Lorraine Motel later in the day. Barack Obama marked the anniversary at a campaign stop in Indiana.
McCain’s evolution from an opponent of the King holiday to a supporter took years.
“I’d remind you that … we can all be a little late sometimes in doing the right thing and Dr. King understood this about his fellow Americans,” McCain said Friday.
In his first term in the U.S. House of Representatives, McCain sided with the minority and opposed the 1983 law creating the national holiday, arguing there were enough federal holidays and that it would be too costly. In 1987 when the governor of Arizona rescinded the state’s King holiday, McCain called it the correct move. But then he reversed himself in 1989, as Arizona faced tourism boycotts.
A May 1989 edition of the Phoenix Gazette quoted him as saying: “I’m still opposed to another federal holiday … but I support the Arizona Martin Luther King holiday because of the enormous proportions this issue has taken on as far as the image of our state and our treatment towards not only blacks but all minorities.”
Arizona voters eventually approved a measure in 1992, making it the second to last state to recognize the holiday (before New Hampshire in 1999).
McCain said Monday he reversed his stance on the Arizona holiday because he “learned (King) was a transcendent figure in American history.”
He said he was “not proud” that Arizona was one of the last states to recognize the holiday.
But as late as 1994, McCain voted against federal funds for the MLK Federal Holiday Commission.
“It’s frankly disingenuous for John McCain to try and reinvent himself for the general election by distorting his record of opposing a holiday honoring Dr. King,” Democratic National spokeswoman Karen Finney said in a statement Friday. “John McCain should be honest about his full record of opposing the federal holiday, opposing a state holiday four years later, using divisive language to defend himself and voting to cut off funding for the commission working to promote the King holiday as recently as 1994.”
McCain also took heat for his short-lived support of South Carolina’s right to fly the confederate flag over the state house during the 2000 primary. Not until he was defeated for the nomination did he say that was not his true feeling but an act of political cowardice.
The Democratic candidates also honored King Friday.
Speaking in Memphis, Clinton appeared to get emotional when she talked about King’s death.
“I will never forget where I was when I heard Dr. King had been killed. I was a junior in college. And I remember hearing about it and feeling such despair,” she said, her voice dropping and quivering a bit. “I walked into my dorm room and took my book bag and hurled it across the room. It felt like everything had been shattered. Like we would never be able to put the pieces together again.”
FOX News’ Carl Cameron, Mosheh Oinounou and Aaron Bruns contributed to this report.
McCain is a racist.
Oh, how the flip-flopping shows up! Every candidate has shown flip-flopping on something or other. Face it, every candidate flip-flops cause every human flip-flops when he or she has to. It is just too bad that we all didn’t recognize that fact when Romney was in the ring. I think we lost a great opportunity. Let’s hope for the M&M team. (Don’t pay attention to the self-righteous, blackmailing AntiMitt group who threaten to sink the ship if Mitt is on the ticket. Don’t let them dictate our free will away!)
Sadly, McCain was in his 30s when Martin Luther King was shot.
McCain remembers this country’s history of segregation and the Jim Crow laws which disenfranchise millions.
Instead of being on the side of right on this issue, he sided with those who still fly the confederate flag proudly.
How can we expect McCain to show good judgment when he has been wrong on this issue, the war in Iraq, and the US economy?
Atleast McCain said he made a mistake… I have to give him that. UNlike Hillary who will lie and lie about things she has quote “misspoken”
Vote for Obama!
After HRC’s bald-faced lies about her experience in the Balkans (vis a vis sniper fire, etc.), it is very hard to give any credence to her recollections about her feelings upon learning of Dr. King’s death. You have to remember that, when LBJ enlisted Republican aid in getting the Civil Rights Act passed, it was because he knew that the Democratic Party would not support him. LBJ didn’t pass the Civil Rights Act, Everett Dirksen did, and LBJ gave him full credit for doing so. HRC has always been very disingenuous about this whole subject.
We, today should apologize, for WHAT?? This is 2008, not 1964. Move FORWARD, not backwards. McCain has nothing to apolgize for. Different times make for different decisions. Memphis needs to move FORWARD and stop with the repressed attitude.
Comment by Offended American
Bravo - superbly said. I couldn’t have said it better!
Dave from Boise
If ignorance is bliss, all of you are solid blisters.
Senator McCain is an elderly man from a different era and I greatly admire him for admitting his mistake and for the courage that must have taken, especially in front of a jeering crowd.
On the other hand, this is 2008 and we need a contemporary leader, in touch with current times. Senator McCain, Martin Luther King and Jeremiah Wright are all players from a past era who, in my opinion, cannot lead us into the future.
To “A More Perfect Union”
Obama ‘08
It is ashame that McCain thinks it is necessar to apologize for his vote. If you can take the blinders of race off, and make a list of people who are really important in the history of this country and, do not have “a day”, King is so far back in the list that, he would never be reached. But he is, in that way, no different from many important people. If we had special days for ll of them, no one would ever work.
My complaint is that, to satisfy, placate and buy one group politically, he got jumped over many more important people. As an example, can anyone sanely argue that Ben Franklin should not come first? There are many others.
MLK day was simply a way to buy peace. It was giving in to a sort of blackmail (no pun intended). Inaddition, businesses are are pressured into closing on that day when, they have no obligation to do so. Again, blackmail at work. If I owned a business, I would certainly make my own decision on the matter and likely, stay open in protest if nothing else.