The State ~ Tea Partyers and MLK marchers rally in D.C.

Buses loaded with hundreds of South Carolinians will be on the road to Washington, D.C., this weekend to participate in dueling marches — one expected to be mostly white, one expected to be mostly African-American.

On Saturday, the anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech, Tea Party groups from across the nation will rally at the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.

It’s where King’s vision for America rang out 47 years ago before reverberating through history.

That Fox News Channel talk show host Glenn Beck would invite party groups to rally on this day — at that location — has traditional civil rights groups upset. Tea Party-affiliated groups have been accused of allowing racist images and racist behavior at past rallies.

A separate rally commemorating King’s speech has been planned.

“No one day was more important than that day 47 years ago, when the world stood still and heard the dream eloquently spoken by Dr. King,” reads a flier issued by the Rev. Al Sharpton’s National Action Network, host of the counter-rally.

But that anniversary date shouldn’t make the Lincoln Memorial off-limits, said Terry Olson, Columbia Tea Party chairman.

“I can understand where they are coming from, but get over it,” Olson said. “I don’t think (the anniversary date of King’s speech) should be an issue.”

Tea Party excitement

Beck’s “Restoring Honor” rally is drawing hundreds of South Carolinians to D.C. for what is expected to be a crowd of 100,000.

Four buses carrying 392 members of the Columbia Tea Party are slated to leave the capital city Friday night for the Beck rally, along with two from Boiling Springs and another from Sumter.

In Charleston, six buses carrying more than 350 people will pull out for Washington on two separate schedules Friday, and two buses carrying members of the Carolina Patriots are slated to leave Myrtle Beach Friday.

Beck’s rally, in Olson’s view, is a call to unity similar to what he said was voiced by King over the breadth of his entire speech, rather than an appeal to one race or another.

“We’re pushing the same message,” Olson said.

“It doesn’t have to be black Americans or white Americans (who can speak at the Lincoln Memorial Saturday). Anybody with credibility can do what Glenn Beck is doing.

Olson is certain Saturday’s rally will be race-neutral.

The Beck rally has discouraged signs at the three-hour gathering, shifting the march’s focus from Beck’s vision for America to a tribute honoring the military.

One S.C. civil rights veteran thinks there is simmering racism among some Tea Party affiliates.

“You cannot come these days and say, ‘I’m a racist,’” said the Rev. Joseph Darby, an AME pastor and first vice president of the South Carolina NAACP.

“I view Beck as a huckster, much like a religious huckster,” Darby said. “Instead of thumping the Bible, he’s thumping the (U.S.) Constitution. But it’s like wrapping dead fish in a mink coat: it’s still dead fish.”

Vicki Styles, president of the Charleston Tea Party group, thinks the criticism is out of bounds

“I kinda feel insulted about the criticism,” Styles said. “I was all for the civil rights movement, and there are plenty of black people in the Tea Party.”

Competing views

Richard Johnson of Aiken is among a group hoping to go to Washington Saturday to attend Sharpton’s march at the Martin Luther King Memorial, blocks from the National Mall.

A Korean War veteran, Johnson is an African-American who has been active in the Aiken County Democratic Party since 1964, and he explains why he would make the trek: “(The Tea Party) is against what we are for,” he said simply. “Glenn Beck is trying to neutralize, or nullify, King’s March on Washington.”

Those born from 1960 forward have no idea what it was like for African-Americans born during segregation, Johnson said.

“It was a totally different America,” he said. “If we are not diligent and alert now, we will find ourselves back in pre-1960 America.”

For tea partyers and affiliated groups their vision of America reaches back much further than 1960. It goes back to the country’s founding, and ideals they say are race-neutral.

“We are truly conservative constitutionalists,” said Janet Spencer, president of the Carolina Patriots of Myrtle Beach.

Spencer said Carolina Patriots members are not racist. But Spencer has strong opinions about the nation’s first African-American president.

Spencer said she doubts President Barack Obama is a U.S. citizen. She also feels certain he is not Christian..

Styles dismisses the controversy.

“Personally to me, it’s showing we do need to restore honor for our Constitution,” Styles said of the trip.