Dornan Has Rights Answer : Politics: Challenged by foe on claim he joined Rev. King on historic 1963 march, congressman finds proof in black and white.

For weeks, Democrat Mike Farber has been waiting for Rep. Robert K. Dornan to repeat the claim that he had participated in the civil rights movement of the 1960s.

Dornan, the eight-term Republican congressman from Garden Grove whom Farber is trying to unseat in the Nov. 8 election, had said on a national radio program and elsewhere that he had helped register black voters in Mississippi and had participated in a historic civil rights march with the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. Farber did not believe it and hoped to prove him wrong.

And then last week Dornan said it again.

In responding to Farber’s charge that he had not paid attention to the needs of Latinos in his largely ethnic 46th Congressional District, Dornan said he supported the efforts of minorities and pointed out that he had participated in the civil rights movement.

Like a poker player holding aces, Farber this week produced a letter signed by participants and historians of the civil rights movement who “strongly question” Dornan’s claim of participating in the cause, particularly in light of what they allege is Dornan’s “dismal voting record on civil rights.”

But Dornan pulled out a wild card of his own.

He produced a black and white photograph of the 250,000-member crowd gathered in front of the Lincoln Memorial on Aug. 28, 1963--the day of King’s historic march on Washington. Seated in the midst of Hollywood celebrities who flew to Washington for the march is Dornan, wearing his Air Force captain’s uniform.

Dornan said he remembered marching from the Capitol to the Lincoln Memorial, hand-in-hand with a 7-year-old African-American boy--a day, he said, that was one of the proudest in his life.

“If it’s true, it’s a sad day,” Farber said after being told of the photograph’s existence. “These people that were associated with King had some element of doubt (about Dornan’s participation). . . . They were asking for proof because of his record on civil (rights) matters, which is pretty dismal.”

Dornan said he has nothing to prove.

“I don’t have to prove this to Jesse Jackson or to this unknown person,” he said, referring to Farber. “(Farber has) no life, no resume, no biography, no background, no history on civil rights, human rights, crime fighting. . . . He has never done anything in his life except help and advance himself.”

*

Dornan said he had anticipated that his attendance at the 1963 march on Washington would be questioned. So he had his staff search for photographs at the Library of Congress. He said he made 50 copies of the photo, and plans to autograph them and send them to members of the Congressional Black Caucus.

Although he does not have proof that he went to Philadelphia, Miss., in 1964 for two weeks to register black voters, Dornan quickly recites the dates, names and places of key events to demonstrate his knowledge of the era.

He went to Mississippi, Dornan explained, because he felt he “owed it to my black commanders who taught me to fly.” He served in the Air Force from 1953 to 1958, and in the reserves and National Guard until 1985.

Rep. John Lewis (D-Georgia), who signed the letter to Dornan and was the youngest speaker at the march on Washington, conceded that while it is possible that Dornan was at the march, he doubts Dornan was in Mississippi.

“I got to know most of the individuals (in the Mississippi voter registration project). I recruited many of them,” he said. “Especially, if (a volunteer) was white, I think I would have known that person.”

In their letter to Dornan, civil rights leaders said that film clips and news coverage of the civil rights movement were reviewed at the Martin Luther King Center, the Memphis Civil Rights Museum and at UCLA, but no evidence was found of Dornan’s participation.

Jackson, Lewis, the Rev. Fred L. Shuttleworth of Cincinnati, who was a former adviser to King, and Itibari Zulu, a historian at UCLA, agreed to sign the letter to Dornan.

“Those of us who either participated or are academic experts in those marches and registration drives . . . have absolutely no recollection of your presence,” states the letter, which asks Dornan to provide proof. “The existence of your dismal voting record on civil rights also leads us to strongly question your claims.”

*

Lewis said that while Dornan has often commented to him that he was a participant, Dornan’s name does not appear on the extensive lists of volunteers that were maintained during the voter registration drives. He said that volunteers held a 30-year reunion this year and Dornan was not there.

Dornan said he voted for the 1991 Civil Rights Act. But Lewis said Dornan has not shown a commitment to the cause.

“It would seem strange to me, for someone who participated in the Mississippi Summer Project in 1964 and the march on Washington in 1963 and then all these years later . . . take some unbelievable stands against civil liberties,” Lewis said. “. . . For me, it’s hard for people to change that much.”