Martin Luther King Jr.’s daughter Bernice King praises joke around fan looking like her father: ‘This was just fun.’

Over the years, there have been many unusual references to famed late civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., with some of those in quite poor taste. And his family have criticized some of those. But King’s daughter Bernice, CEO of the King Center for Nonviolent Social Change, appreciated one that took off on Twitter/X Saturday night. That was of people commenting that a Baltimore Ravens’ fan who was shown late in the fourth quarter of their win over the Houston Texans resembled her father:

https://twitter.com/BerniceKing/status/1748893051286614055

King went on to note how she finds this different from some posts on her father she finds disrespectful:

Some of it is disrespectful, like the party and sale graphics that use his image, and the AI photos of him with politicians who are very contrary to his teachings. This was just fun. https://t.co/HuOCnnpz7J

— Be A King (@BerniceKing) January 21, 2024

For the record, this is an actual image from the game broadcast on ESPN/ABC. It happened with 14:23 left on the game clock in the fourth quarter, and can be seen below:

Here's the clip of the fan during the Texans-Ravens game that sparked this discussion about a resemblance to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. pic.twitter.com/mT25lYzJFx

— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) January 21, 2024

This image did wind up going all over the place. The @FlockEnthusiast tweet King quote-tweeted had more than 14,000 retweets, 91,000 likes, and 8.6 million views as per Twitter as of 10 a.m. ET Sunday, while King’s quote tweet of it had more than 6,000 retweets and 44,000 likes. Several other posts with that image also got thousands of retweets and likes. And many also weighed in to praise the Starter jacket the fan was wearing.

In sports alone, we’ve seen a lot of questionable references to Dr. King over the years. From Bill Simmons’s 2013 move to tie Memphis sports fandom to Dr. King’s assassination in that city to Florida State’s official football recruiting Twitter account using his image with a “Do something” line in 2019 to Baltimore Orioles’ CEO John Angelos and ESPN personality Pat McAfee bringing him up in unusual ways in separate speeches on Martin Luther King Jr. Day the past two years, discussions of Dr. King and sports have often prompted a lot of backlash. So it’s interesting to see that this one went over well with his daughter, and to hear her explanation on why this post worked where others have not.

[Bernice King on Twitter/X]