Vice President-elect Kamala Harris had previously told the anecdote about her young woman crying out “Fweedom!” – which led to accusations of plagiarism – in his books.
“My mother used to laugh when she told the story of a time when I was an agitated child: she leaned over and asked, ‘Kamala, what’s wrong? What you want?’ And I shouted back, ‘Fweedom’, “wrote Harris in his 2010 book” Smart on Crime “.
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Harris also detailed his younger self by demanding “Fweedom!” in his 2019 book “The Truths We Hold: An American Journey”.
Harris apparently appropriated an anecdote first told by civil rights icon Martin Luther King Jr. when she was interviewed by Elle Magazine for an article that was published in October, at the height of the race for the 2020 presidential election.
Vice President-elect Kamala Harris, accompanied by her husband Doug Emhoff, speaks to the media after delivering Toys for Tots items to a District of Columbia Fire House on Tuesday, December 22, 2020 in Washington. (AP Photo / Jacquelyn Martin)
Harris repeatedly boasted about his parents’ involvement in the 1960s civil rights movement. In the interview with Elle, she remembered accompanying them on marches when they were children in a baby stroller.
“Senator Kamala Harris started her life’s work young,” writer Ashley C. Ford started the article. “She laughs at herself, as you would with her family, when she remembers being taken by a civil rights march in Oakland, California, in a strapless baby stroller with her parents and uncle. At some point, she fell out of the cart … and the adults, caught by the ecstasy of the protest, just kept marching. When they realized that little Kamala was gone and came back, she was understandably upset. ”
“My mom tells the story of how excited I am,” Harris told the magazine. “And she’s like, ‘Baby, what do you want? What do you need?’ And I just looked at her and said, ‘Fweedom.’ “
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After the interview reappeared on Monday, Twitter user @EngelsFreddie and Andray Domise, a contributing editor at Canadian publication Maclean’s, noted that Harris’s story resembles one told by King in a 1965 interview published on Playboy.
“I will never forget a moment in Birmingham when a white police officer approached a little black girl, seven or eight years old, who was walking through a demonstration with his mother,” said King at the time. “‘What you want?’ asked the policeman sharply, and the girl looked him straight in the eye and replied: ‘Fee-dom’. She couldn’t even pronounce it, but she knew it. It was beautiful! my mind and cheered me up. “
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Joseph A. Wulfsohn of Fox News contributed to this report.