Kamala is roasted on Twitter for 'plagiarizing' anecdote from 1965 Playboy interview with Martin Luther King Jr about wanting 'fweedom' as a young child during civil rights movement
- Vice President-elect Kamala Harris gave interview in October to Elle magazine
- She tells anecdote of her being pushed in stroller during a march in Oakland
- Harris claimed she fell out of stroller as her parents and uncle kept marching
- Harris said her mom came back found her upset after being left behind
- 'Baby, what do you want? What do you need?' her mom is said to have asked her
- Harris claimed in the interview that she gave a one-word reply: 'Fweedom'
- Anecdote bears similarity to similar anecdote told by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr
- King said a little girl in Birmingham told police officer she wanted 'Fee-dom'
Vice President-elect Kamala Harris is being accused of plagiarizing an anecdote about her family’s involvement in the civil rights movement by lifting it from a 1965 interview given by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
The quote in question is from an interview recently given by Harris to Elle magazine.
The October interview begins with Harris claiming that she was in a stroller when she, her parents, and her uncle took part in a civil rights march in Oakland.
According to Harris, she fell from the stroller and her parents and uncle continued to walk past her as they were ‘caught up in the rapture of protest,’ according to Elle magazine.
Once Kamala’s parents and uncle realized what had happened, they went back looking for her and found her upset.
Vice President-elect Kamala Harris (seen above in Savannah, Georgia, on Sunday) told Elle magazine in October an anecdote about her family's involement in the civil rights movement in Oakland, California, in the 1960s. The anecdote bore striking similarity to one told in 1965 by the late Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr
Harris told Elle that she fell out of a stroller during the march and was briefly left behind by her parents and uncle. When her mother came back to find her upset, she asked the young child what she wanted. 'Fweedom,' Harris is said to have responded. King (seen left in Birmingham in 1963) told a similar story of a young girl in Birmingham telling a white police officer that she wanted 'Fee-dom'
The similarities between the anecdote told by Harris and the one relayed by King to Alex Haley in 1965 were first noticed by keen-eyed observers on Twitter
‘My mother tells the story about how I’m fussing,’ Harris is quoted as saying.
‘And she’s like, “Baby, what do you want? What do you need?”
‘And I just looked at her and I said, “Fweedom”.’
Keen-eyed Twitter observers noted, however, that the anecdote bears striking similarity to a story told by the slain civil rights leader King in an interview with Alex Haley published by Playboy magazine more than five decades ago.
King told Haley about his experiences leading civil rights demonstrations in the South.
‘I never will forget a moment in Birmingham when a white policeman accosted a little Negro girl, seven or eight years old, who was walking in a demonstration with her mother,’ King is quoted as saying.
‘“What do you want?” the policeman asked her gruffly, and the little girl looked him straight in the eye and answered, “Fee-dom.”’
‘She couldn’t even pronounce it, but she knew. It was beautiful!
‘Many times when I have been in sorely trying situations, the memory of that little one has come into my mind, and has buoyed me.’
DailyMail.com has reached out to the Biden-Harris transition team to comment.
The apparent plagiarism had Twitter users give Harris the meme treatment, as she was compared to Mel Gibson’s William Wallace character in the hit film Braveheart.
Donald Trump Jr, the president’s eldest son, tweeted: ‘No one is shocked and no one in the MSM (mainstream media) will cover it.’
‘If Kamala is willing to lie and steal a life story from Martin Luther King... what wont she lie about???’ Tim Young tweeted.
Commentator John Cardillo mocked Harris by inserting ‘fweedom’ into a famous quote by late President Ronald Reagan.
‘“Fweedom is never more than one generation away from extinction,’ the quote read. He then added Harris’ name at the bottom as if to suggest that she plagiarized it.
Another Twitter user posted an image of King holding his hand to his forehead as if to indicate that it was his reaction to Harris’ story.
Another meme superimposed Harris’ face on Steve Carell’s character from The Office, Michael Scott.
Scott is seen next to a bulletin board where a famous quote attributed to hockey legend Wayne Gretzky is written.
‘You miss 100 percent of the shots you don’t take,’ the quote from Gretzky reads. Scott writes his name below the Gretzky quote.
In the meme, Harris writes her name underneath that of Scott.
Another Twitter user noted that President-elect Joe Biden, who picked Harris as his running mate, has also been accused of plagiarism.
The word 'Fweedom' was trending on Twitter as Harris was given the meme treatment, including one in which her face is superimposed on the body of Mel Gibson's character in the hit film Braveheart, William Wallace
This Twitter user posted an image of a young child dressed as William Wallace, joking that this was Kamala Harris as a child
Donald Trump Jr, the president’s eldest son, tweeted: ‘No one is shocked and no one in the MSM (mainstream media) will cover it.’
Another meme superimposed Harris’ face on Steve Carell’s character from The Office, Michael Scott. Scott is seen next to a bulletin board where a famous quote attributed to hockey legend Wayne Gretzky is written. ‘You miss 100 percent of the shots you don’t take,’ the quote from Gretzky reads. Scott writes his name below the Gretzky quote. In the meme, Harris writes her name underneath that of Scott
Another Twitter user posted an image of King holding his hand to his forehead as if to indicate that it was his reaction to Harris’ story
Commentator John Cardillo mocked Harris by inserting ‘fweedom’ into a famous quote by late President Ronald Reagan. ‘“Fweedom is never more than one generation away from extinction,’ the quote read. He then added Harris’ name at the bottom as if to suggest that she plagiarized it
‘If Kamala is willing to lie and steal a life story from Martin Luther King... what wont she lie about???’ Tim Young tweeted
Another Twitter user noted that President-elect Joe Biden, who picked Harris as his running mate, has also been accused of plagiarism
When then-Senator Biden ran for the Democratic Party’s nomination for president in 1987, he gave a speech that bore resemblance to one delivered that same year by the head of the British Labour Party, Neil Kinnock.
During a speech in Iowa, Biden did not credit Kinnock even though he acknowledged using his remarks as a reference.
Biden eventually withdrew from the race. The Democratic nomination was eventually won by Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis, who wound up losing the presidential race to George H.W. Bush.
In recent months, Harris has spoken about the importance of the civil rights movement in her family’s life.
She said her parents, Donald Harris and Shyamala Gopalan, first met each while marching in the 1960s.
Donald had immigrated to the United States from Jamaica and Gopalan came over from India. They both were academics pursuing degrees at the University of California, Berkeley.
‘My parents marched and shouted in the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s,’ Harris wrote on her Instagram account in June.
In recent months, Harris has spoken about the importance of the civil rights movement in her family’s life. She said her parents, Donald Harris and Shyamala Gopalan, first met each while marching in the 1960s. Harris' parents are seen in the above undated portrait
Harris is seen above (left) as a young girl next to her sister, Maya, and their mother, Shyamala, outside their apartment in Berkeley, California, in January 1970 after her parents separated
‘It’s because of them and the folks who also took to the streets to fight for justice that I am where I am.
‘They laid the path for me, as only the second Black woman ever elected to the United States Senate.’
Harris will be sworn in as vice president on January 20th after Biden takes the oath of office and is officially inaugurated.
The senator from California will be the first ever woman of color to serve in the second-highest office in the land.
‘Fweedom’: Kamala Harris Says She Marched for Civil Rights in a Stroller
A little-noticed anecdote that Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) told Elle in October has gone viral, thanks to its fantastical premise that she was a civil rights champion even as a small child, and it is likely cribbed from a story recounted by Martin Luther King Jr.
In October, Elle published this passage:
Senator Kamala Harris started her life’s work young. She laughs from her gut, the way you would with family, as she remembers being wheeled through an Oakland, California, civil rights march in a stroller with no straps with her parents and her uncle. At some point, she fell from the stroller (few safety regulations existed for children’s equipment back then), and the adults, caught up in the rapture of protest, just kept on marching. By the time they noticed little Kamala was gone and doubled back, she was understandably upset. “My mother tells the story about how I’m fussing,” Harris says, “and she’s like, ‘Baby, what do you want? What do you need?’ And I just looked at her and I said, ‘Fweedom.’”
That ripping good yarn bears a striking resemblance to a portion of a Playboy interview with Martin Luther King, Jr., from January 1965.
In it, Alex Haley asked King, as “the universally acknowledged leader of the American civil rights movement,” if he ever felt “awed by this burden of responsibility, or inadequate to its demands?”
King replied in part:
I subject myself to self-purification and to endless self-analysis; I question and soul-search constantly into myself to be as certain as I can that I am fulfilling the true meaning of my work, that I am maintaining my sense of purpose, that I am holding fast to my ideals, that I am guiding my people in the right direction. But whatever my doubts, however heavy the burden, I feel that I must accept the task of helping to make this nation and this world a better place to live in—for all men, black and white alike.
I never will forget a moment in Birmingham when a white policeman accosted a little Negro girl, seven or eight years old, who was walking in a demonstration with her mother. “What do you want?” the policeman asked her gruffly, and the little girl looked him straight in the eye and answered, “Fee-dom.”
In the same Elle interview, Harris recounted an alleged exchange with her 7-year-old godson.
“‘Auntie Kamala, they’re not going to let that man win, are they?’ And you know the babies in your life.…” she claimed he said.
According to the magazine, she closed her eyes and swallowed.
“I held him. I mean, it still brings me pain to remember how he felt, and what it made me feel, which is that I needed to protect this child. I had one way, in my mind, I thought the evening would go. And then there was the way it turned out,” she told the magazine.
“And so by the time I took the stage, I had ripped up my notes, and all I had was Alexander in my heart. And I took the podium and I said, ‘I intend to fight. I intend to fight,’” Harris said.
Elle reported, “If there’s anything we can know about Senator Kamala Harris, it’s that. When it comes to freedom, she will fight.”
Kyle Olson is a reporter for Breitbart News. He is also host of “The Kyle Olson Show,” syndicated on Michigan radio stations on Saturdays–download full podcast episodes. Follow him on Parler.
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