Bernice King made it a point to address her distaste for a picture of her late father, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., in his casket published on Twitter by Newsweek, The Root reports.
“Why, Newsweek? Wow.” she tweeted shortly after catching wind of the image, which was accompanied with the caption, “Has Anybody Here Seen My Old Friend Martin?” The quote is a reference from the song, “Abraham, Martin and John,” which debuted in 1968 by singer Dion DiMucci. The record was made to commemorate the lives of MLK, Abraham Lincoln, and John F. Kennedy.
The tweet along with its accompanying article was in efforts to promote the forthcoming anniversary of MLK’s murder in Memphis, TN. Bernice has followed suit on her father’s legacy as a major leader in the civil rights movement and has partaken in activism for black people and women.
Since the occurrence, Newsweek has deleted the original tweet and apologized to Bernice King for the mishap.
Earlier this afternoon we published an opinion piece with an insensitive image of Martin Luther King Jr. We sincerely apologize to the King family for this egregious error.
— Newsweek (@Newsweek) January 1, 2018
According to the New York Daily News, King took to social media and appeared in a live video where she expressed how she felt in-depth about the situation on Monday (Jan 1).
“Today I saw where Newsweek published this insensitive image of my father,” she said. “We must never forget that Dr. King was a husband and was a father so we deal all the time just with continuing to manage our father and the great work that he’s done…so it was difficult,” she said of seeing the image.