If Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. were alive today, would he tweet and post on Facebook? Robert M. Franklin, former president of Morehouse College, where King was an alum, raises the question at CNN as the nation prepares to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington, where King delivered his "I Have a Dream" speech. How would it be delivered today?
What about today, in the age of social media? Would Martin Luther King, Jr. be an active social media communicator? And, a more important question: How well would Martin Luther King, Jr.'s gift for rhetoric translate over social networks?
The answer to both questions is positive.
As a public theologian he had an encyclopedic knowledge of political writings and literature. He had an amazing ability to educate, inspire and mobilize people through language and speech. He would have recognized that social media is the public square of the 21st century. A keen communicator could not afford to be silent in this space.
According to King's advisers, Clarence B. Jones and Andrew Young, Martin would have utilized Twitter and other social media. Jones says, "He would be up all hours of the night telling me and Stanley Levison his thoughts and we would have learned to send tweets."
It's worth noting that during the mid-1950s, King (most likely assisted by a staff member) responded to readers' letters in his "Advice for Living" column in Ebony Magazine. He did this in order to communicate with a more diverse audience through popular media. He discontinued the responses after his life became too busy and his doctor recommended a slower pace following his 1958 stabbing.
Read Robert M. Franklin's entire piece at CNN.
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