Why should we believe that Martin Luther King Jr. was a Republican?

A Republican-produces billboard that presents an questionable characterization of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Groups such as the National Black Republican Association and Raging Elephants seem to want people to believe (as they seem to) that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was a Republican. So, apparently, would Dr. King’s Republican activist niece, Alveda King, and Ada Fisher, a North Carolinian Republican National Committeewoman. The latter has gone so far as to lament that “Most people don’t talk about the fact that Martin Luther King was a Republican.”

Ms. Fisher's confident assertion of "factuality" inspires several questions:

● If Dr. King was a Republican, why did he assert, in 1964, that he wasn’t “inextricably bound” to the Republican party?

● If Dr. King was a Republican, why did cite his desire to not "sacrifice [his] soul" as a reason for turning the Republican Party down when it offered him a significant amount of money to rally black voters in advance of the 1956 election?

● If Dr. King was a Republican, why, in a 1958 letter, did he assure Representative Adam Clayton Powell (who was seeking re-election as a Democrat) that he had his "wholehearted support"?

● If Dr. King was a Republican, why did he say the below about that year’s Republican Convention?

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“The Republican Party geared its appeal and program to racism, reaction, and extremism. All people of goodwill viewed with alarm and concern the frenzied wedding at the Cow Palace of the KKK with the radical right. The “best man” at this ceremony was a senator whose voting record, philosophy, and program were anathema to all the hard-won achievements of the past decade. It was both unfortunate and disastrous that the Republican Party nominated Barry Goldwater as its candidate for President of the United States…I had no alternative but to urge every Negro and white person of goodwill to vote against Mr. Goldwater and to withdraw support from any Republican candidate that did not publicly disassociate himself from Senator Goldwater and his philosophy.”

● If Dr. King was a Republican, why did react (in what seems to be an unfavorable way) to Dixiecrats’ and Republicans’ continual efforts to defeat civil rights legislation by asserting that "This coalition of southern Dixiecrats and right wing reactionary northern Republicans defeats every bill and every move towards liberal legislation in the area of civil rights”?

● Why should one believe, even, that Dr. King was a conservative when he asserted the below?

“There is a dire need today for liberalism which is truly liberal. What we are witnessing today is a sort of quasi-liberalism which is based on the principle of looking sympathetically at all sides. It is a liberalism so bent on seeing all sides that it fails to become committed to either side. It is a liberalism which is neither hot nor cold, but lukewarm. We call for a liberalism which will be thoroughly committed to the ideal of racial justice and will not be deterred by the propaganda and subtle words of those who say: “Slow up for a while; you’re pushing too fast.”

Given the historical evidence which strongly suggests otherwise, is there really any reasonable basis for believing Republicans' and Conservatives' claim that Dr. King was "one of them"?