Christian Century: About that MLK quote
... The problem is that the first sentence of this quote didn't come from King. It's by a woman named Jessica Dovey, who posted it Monday along with the other three sentences, which she (correctly) attributed to King. A prominent Twitter user misread the post before tweeting it, at which point we all started seeing the fake quote on our Facebook walls.
It's interesting that so many people reposted this without noticing that the first sentence's relevance is oddly specific. If that raised suspicion, 30 seconds and some intermediate Google skills would have confirmed it. Yet some people got pretty upset about the initial tweeter's inaccuracy, as if one person's mistake or license can be blamed for others' credulity. Nobody tell them about pseudo-Paul, okay?
While this incident couldn't have happened even ten years ago, putting words in the mouths of beloved and influential people is nothing new. And the frustrated reactions seem particularly odd given that in this case--unlike many others--there's little question that the quote represents the attributed source in spirit....
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