Herman Cain: Black Senator Left Out of MLK Event Because He's GOP

Although several high-profile Republicans were invited to speak at Wednesday's 50th anniversary of the historic civil rights March on Washington, the lone sitting black U.S. senator, Tim Scott of South Carolina, was not.

Former GOP presidential candidate Herman Cain thinks he knows why: "Because he is a conservative Republican, pure and simple," he said Wednesday night on Fox News Channel's "On the Record with Greta Van Susteren."

"The entire commemoration had a very liberal flavor to it," Cain said.

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Republicans such as former President George W. Bush, House Speaker John Boehner and Senate Minority Leader Eric Cantor were invited to speak at the event marking Martin Luther King Jr.'s famous "I Have a Dream" speech, but did not attend for various reasons.

Bush is still recovering from heart surgery, and Boehner and Cantor had other commitments.

Boehner spoke at an event in the Capitol Rotunda last month marking the anniversary and is out of town this week for the August recess, and Cantor, who was traveling Wednesday, had walked the civil rights trail of the 1965 march from Birmingham to Selma, Ala., earlier this year, according to The Wall Street Journal.

Asked by Van Susteren if Scott didn't get an invitation to the King commemoration because it might just have been an oversight, Cain said, "They were meticulous enough to invite all of the Hollywood stars."

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 removed the "civil liberties no-fly zone," Cain said.

"We now have a responsibility to take advantage of that by pursuing our dreams, based upon what [King] talked about and, ultimately, what he died for, which was equal justice and treatment for all," Cain said. "That's what this commemoration, I believe, really should have been about."