Responding to Vice President Mike Pence‘s interview on CBS this Sunday where he seemingly compared a chunk of Martin Luther King‘s legacy to President Trump’s, the civil rights icon’s son said that Pence’s comparison is out of line.
“The vice president attempted to compare the president to Martin Luther King Jr. Martin Luther King Jr. was a bridge builder, not a wall builder,” Martin Luther King III said Monday according to The Atlantic’s Edward-Isaac Dovere.
“Martin Luther King Jr. would say, ‘Love, not hate, will make America great,’ ” added King, who made the comments this Monday.
"Martin Luther King Jr. was a bridge builder, not a wall builder. Martin Luther King Jr. would say, 'Love, not hate, will make America great.'" MLK's son criticized VP Mike Pence for citing the slain civil rights leader to make the case for a wall https://t.co/jMKhpfSB9f #MLKDay pic.twitter.com/YN5ty6ZsPT
— CNN (@CNN) January 21, 2019
Pence was the target of outrage after his Face the Nation appearance where he quoted MLK while arguing for President Trump‘s border wall. At one point, he compared Trump to MLK, saying they both sought “change” through the legislative process.
“One of my favorite quotes from Dr. King was, ‘Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy,’” Pence said.
“You think of how he changed America,” Pence went on, speaking of King. “He inspired us to change through the legislative process, to become a more perfect union.”
“That’s exactly what President Trump is calling on Congress to do — come to the table in the spirit of good faith,” Pence said. “We’ll secure our border. We’ll reopen the government, and we’ll move our nation forward, as the president said yesterday, to even a broader discussion about immigration reform in the months ahead.”
As NBC News points out, another one of King’s speeches made a powerful statement against walls. In a 1964 speech in East Berlin, King addressed the then-standing Berlin Wall.
“Here on either side of the wall are God’s children, and no manmade barrier can obliterate that fact,” King said.
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