ATLANTA—Calling on Americans to misinterpret absolutely everything the martyred activist stood for, the family of Martin Luther King Jr. urged the nation Wednesday to spend the 50th anniversary of his death twisting the civil rights icon’s words to advance their own individual agendas. “It is my sincerest hope that Americans will take time on this somber day to reflect on how my father’s message can be manipulated to lend credence to their specific political viewpoints,” said son Dexter Scott King, who observed that people taking Dr. King’s remarks out of context in order to prop up an argument about a given current event is exactly what the late Baptist minister and Nobel Peace Prize laureate would have wanted. “Whether you are liberal or conservative, Democrat or Republican, it would mean the world to us if you could exploit my father’s memory as a means to put your opponents in their place. All we ask is that you post a meme with his photo and something he said—or, for that matter, didn’t say—to justify your beliefs.” King added that should any companies feel compelled to pervert the legacy of his father to further their corporate interests, that would be even better.

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