Name: Kamala Harris accused of having 'lifted' anecdote from MLK in childhood 'fweedom' story
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Kamala Harris accused of having 'lifted' anecdote from MLK in childhood 'fweedom' story

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Vice President-elect Kamala Harris told Elle magazine a story about attending a civil rights march as a child that bears a striking resemblance to one told decades earlier by civil rights icon Martin Luther King Jr.Published at the height of the 2020 presidential election campaign in early October, the article resurfaced this week after appearing in year-in-review list by the magazine.Harris has often spoken of her parents' efforts in the civil rights movement of the 1960s and in the tells how she accompanied them as a toddler to a march in Oakland, California."Senator Kamala Harris started her life’s work young," journalist Ashley Ford wrote. "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 said. “And she’s like, ‘Baby, what do you want? What do you need?’ And I just looked at her and I said, ‘Fweedom.’”On Monday, Twitter users @EngelsFreddie and Andray Domise, a contributing editor at Canadian news magazine Maclean's, pointed to a similar story recalled by King during with Alex Haley for Playboy magazine in 1965. King had won the Nobel Peace Prize one year earlier."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 said. “'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."So it turns out Kamala Harris lifted her "Fweedom" story from a 1965 Playboy interview with Martin Luther King, by Alex Haley. Much thanks to for spotting the similarity — Q. Anthony (ɔpɛ asem) (@andraydomise)Domise charged that Harris "lifted" her account from King, which other users similarly ."Read this too-perfect Kamala Harris story," wrote former New York Times opinion writer Bari Weiss. "Then click on this 1965 Alex Haley interview with MLK and search for the word 'fee-dom.'"Read this too-perfect Kamala Harris story. Then click on this 1965 Alex Haley interview with MLK and search for the word "fee-dom" (h/t ): — Bari Weiss (@bariweiss)Harris has a similar anecdote on other occasions, the preface to her 2010 book, Smart on Crime, where of her "stroller's eye view" of the civil rights movement unfolding around her in Berkeley and Oakland, where she lived."My early memories are of a sea of legs marching around the streets and the sounds of shouting. The conversations in our apartment in the Berkeley flatlands area on Bancroft Avenue would go late into the night, and, of course, we picked up the language of the movement," Harris explains. "My mother used to laugh when she told the story about a time I was fussing as a toddler: She leaned down to ask me, 'Kamala, what's wrong? What do you want?' and I wailed back, 'Fweedom.'"In her 2019 memoir, The Truths We Hold: An American Journey, released shortly before she announced her candidacy for the Democratic Party's presidential nomination, Harris repeats the story.Kamala Harris also used the "Fweedom" story in her 2019 book "The Truths We Hold." — Cameron Cawthorne (@Cam_Cawthorne)Articles in and the also include Harris's memory of calling out for "fweedom."A spokesperson for Harris did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Vice President-elect Kamala Harris told Elle magazine a story about attending a civil rights march as a child that bears a striking resemblance to one told decades earlier by civil rights icon Martin Luther King Jr.Published at the height of the 2020 presidential election campaign in early October, the article resurfaced this week after appearing in year-in-review list by the magazine.Harris has often spoken of her parents' efforts in the civil rights movement of the 1960s and in the tells how she accompanied them as a toddler to a march in Oakland, California."Senator Kamala Harris started...

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Katherine Doyle

The Washington Examiner is an American conservative news website and weekly magazine based in Washington, D.C. It is owned by MediaDC, a subsidiary of Clarity Media Group, which is owned by Philip Anschutz. From 2005 to mid-2013, the Examiner published a daily tabloid-sized newspaper, distributed throughout the Washington, D.C., metro area. The newspaper focused on local news and political commentary. The local newspaper ceased publication on June 14, 2013, whereupon its content began to focus almost exclusively on national politics, switching its print edition from a daily newspaper to a weekly magazine format.

Kamala Harris accused of having 'lifted' anecdote from MLK in childhood 'fweedom' story

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