Glenn Beck held a huge rally Saturday to “celebrate America” - and himself - at the Lincoln Memorial, drawing scores of Tea Party faithful into a swirling debate on race and politics.

Joined by sidekick Sarah Palin, Beck declared that the nation “for too long had wandered in the darkness” of divisive politics “but America today begins turning back to God.”
But first, the Fox News and talk radio host wanted to gaze at the crowd that flanked the Reflecting Pool hundreds deep and swarmed the grounds of the Memorial where the Rev. Martin Luther King gave his “I Have a Dream” speech 47 years ago.
“Something beyond amazing is happening,” said Beck, in giving his own crowd estimate of more than 400,000.
“This really is build it and they will come,” added Beck, marveling at the attraction of his message of faith-based patriotism.
In her remarks, Palin focused on supporting the troops, another theme of the “Restoring Honor” Beck rally.
The former GOP governor of Alaska said she was appearing “not as a politician” but “as the mother of her soldier,” her Army son Track.
While honoring “those who served something greater than themselves,” the crowd should also recall “those who killed without mercy on Sept. 11,” Palin said.
“I know many of us are worried” about the state of the nation, Palin said, but “look around you, you are not alone. You are Americans.”
Beck saw no irony in bringing his message to the spot where King gave his galvanizing speech on social justice and equality. Jumbotron screens flashed the image of King giving the speech, imploring Americans to “Let Freedom Ring.”
The Rev. Al Sharpton and other critics have hammered Beck's rally, charging him with disgracing King's memory.
Sharpton, president of the National Action Network, countered Beck's event with a march and rally from a District high school featuring Martin Luther King III and Education Secretary Arne Duncan.
Sharpton called the Beck rally an “outright attempt to flip the imagery of Dr. King” and debase his memory. MSNBC host Ed Shultz, who appeared with Sharpton, called Beck a race-baiter.
More than an hour after the Beck rally began, crowds were still streaming across the Potomac River bridges and down Constitution Ave. to join it.
Among them was Brenda St. Clair, 60, of Akron, Ohio, who wore an American flag shirt and said she was a former union representative who voted for Obama.
“I had a lot of hope in what he could do for us,” St. Clair said of Obama, but she now felt that Obama had betrayed his promise.
St. Clair said that honor and trust “have slipped out of our grasp while we weren't looking,” but she was encouraged by the size of the crowd that hope could be restored. “I'm overwhelmed, this far exceeds my expectations,” St. Clair said.
Ken Scott, 52, of High Point, N.C., said that Beck was a “lightning rod” for the political left, but the rally itself was not political.
“It's not a Republican or a Democrat thing,” Scott said. “It's a Constitutional thing.”
But the allegations that have trailed the Tea Party, and been vehemently denied by its activists, surfaced again after Tea Party blogger Bruce Majors posted a guide to the Beck rally, warning those attending to avoid certain subway lines and black neighborhoods.
Elected officials were not included in the Beck rally, which featured Alveda King, niece of the slain civil rights leader. Cardinals manager Tony La Russa and slugger Albert Pujols also were on the bill.
Beck said that all proceeds from the rally would go to the Special Operations Warrior Foundation, a Tampa-based non-profit that provides scholarships to the children of Special Ops troops killed in action or training.
(Source: nydailynews.com)