Sep 5, 2010

New Oval Office rug has incorrect quote

A new presidential rug was placed in the Oval Office while the Obama's were vacationing at Martha's Vineyard.

The rug, shown below, has quotations from former presidents: Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin Roosevelt and John F. Kennedy.

It also has a quotation attributed to Martin Luther King, Jr. Problem is the quote is not a King quote.

The quote in question is: "The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice."

Martin Luther King, Jr. used the quote in the 1960's, but the words were not his.

Whoever made the rug got it wrong because the actual author of the quote was Theodore Parker, a white abolitionist and civil rights pioneer, who foresaw the end of slavery before he died in 1860 at the age of 49.

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