In her interview on Meet the Press with Tim Russert last Sunday January 13, 2008, Hillary Clinton claimed that, “He (Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.) campaigned for political leaders, including Lyndon Johnson.” This didn’t sound correct since Martin Luther King Jr. was thought to be a Republican so it didn’t make sense that he would be campaigning for a democrat.

While investigating whether MLK Jr. ever campaigned for democrat LBJ (which I was never able to verify) I did find a disturbing piece of information that was something I had not heard before.

Martin Luther King Jr. took his “I Have a Dream Speech” from a Black Republican…

Without ever giving proper credit to that Republican.

Gaven Tradoux reported on the MLK Jr. penchant to plagiarize previously:

“Even the much celebrated “I have a dream” speech of 1963 was plagiarized. By a peculiar turn of events, the source King raided for this was a speech given to the Republican National convention of 1952, by a black preacher named Archibald Carey.”

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Archibald Carey was appointed Chair of the President’s Committee on Government Employment Policy by President Dwight D. Eisenhower on August 3, 1957. He was the first African-American to hold this position. Mr. Carey also served as an alternate delegate from the United States to the United Nations from 1953 to 1956.

In 1952 Rev. Archibald Carey gave a speech at the Republican National Convention. Here is part of that “not so well known” speech by Rev. Archibald Carey, Jr. at the Republican Convention in 1952:

“We, Negro Americans, sing with all loyal Americans:

My country ’tis of thee,

Sweet land of liberty,

Of thee I sing.

Land where my fathers died,

Land of the Pilgrims’ pride

From every mountainside

Let freedom ring! That’s exactly what we mean —

from every mountain side, let freedom ring.

Not only from the Green Mountains and White Mountains

of Vermont and New Hampshire;

not only from the Catskills of New York;

but from the Ozarks in Arkansas,

from the Stone Mountain in Georgia,

from the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia

— let it ring not only for the minorities of the United States,

but for the disinherited of all the earth —

may the Republican Party, under God, from every mountainside,

LET FREEDOM RING!”

And, here are the famous words from the “I Have a Dream” speech by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. on August 28, 1963:

This will be the day when all of God’s children will be able to sing with a new meaning,

“My country, ’tis of thee,

Sweet land of liberty,

Of thee I sing.

Land where my fathers died,

Land of the pilgrim’s pride,

From every mountainside,

Let freedom ring.” And if America is to be a great nation this must become true.

So let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire.

Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York.

Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania!

Let freedom ring from the snowcapped Rockies of Colorado!

Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California!

But not only that; let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia!

Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee!

Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi.

From every mountainside, let freedom ring. And when this happens, when we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, “Free at last! free at last! thank God Almighty, we are free at last!”

This weekend as the life of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. is celebrated, remember the Black Republican behind this great American Speech–

The Reverend Archibald Carey

Related… Senator Barack Obama gave a sermon today in the Ebenezer Baptist Church where he celebrated the words of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Lynn Sweet has photos from his church sermon.