Repeated: Martin Luther King was a Republican

Sometimes an incorrect claim persists.

So it goes with a description of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. as a Republican.

Of late, colleagues at PolitiFact Tennessee and PolitiFact Rhode Island each took up such characterizations of the late civil rights leader. Both claims were rated False -- like one we noticed by a Houston group in January 2011.

PolitiFact Rhode Island concluded: "We can certainly envision King being willing to vote against the Southern Democrats who furiously promoted segregation and voting for Northern Republicans who worked to make equal rights a reality. But neither automatically makes King a Republican, especially when, as a civil rights leader, he apparently wouldn't let himself be pigeonholed into either political party."

See our original article to the right. Peek at the checks by PolitiFact Tennessee and PolitiFact Rhode Island here and here.