On the 49th anniversary of the assassination of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., the FBI took to Twitter Tuesday to honor his life, work and commitment to justice. Along with a photo of King from the Library of Congress, the FBI included a graphic of the following quote from him with its tweet: “We shall overcome because the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.”
Whoever is running the FBI social media accounts probably thought he or she was doing a good thing, and likely thought the tweet would get lots of RTs and likes, and it did, but for all the wrong reasons.
See, if you know your history, then you know that the FBI conspired against King. In fact, FBI agents once sent him a letter in which they encouraged him to kill himself.
So why the agency would think that sending a tweet to celebrate King’s life and legacy was a good idea is anybody’s guess.
Thankfully, Twitter was on the job and ready to call the FBI out on its bullshit, and we were here for each and every tweet.
Hopefully the FBI will take this L and learn from it.