Vice President-elect Kamala Harris recalled a bizarre story from her childhood that many thought was strikingly similar to one told by the iconic civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. in 1965.

In the profile from Elle magazine, Harris says that as a child she tumbled out of her stroller while her parents were enraptured at a political demonstration.

Senator Kamala Harris started her life’s work young. She laughs from her gut, the way you would with family, as she remembers being wheeled through an Oakland, California, civil rights march in a stroller with no straps with her parents and her uncle. At some point, she fell from the stroller (few safety regulations existed for children’s equipment back then), and the adults, caught up in the rapture of protest, just kept on marching. By the time they noticed little Kamala was gone and doubled back, she was understandably upset. “My mother tells the story about how I’m fussing,” Harris says, “and she’s like, ‘Baby, what do you want? What do you need?’ And I just looked at her and I said, ‘Fweedom.'”

Many on social media immediately cast doubt on the story and called it improbable, but others noted how similar it was to a story told by MLK to Playboy magazine in 1965.

I never will forget a moment in Birmingham when a white policeman accosted a little Negro girl, seven or eight years old, who was walking in a demonstration with her mother. “What do you want?” the policeman asked her gruffly, and the little girl looked him straight in the eye and answered, “Fee-dom.” She couldn’t even pronounce it, but she knew. It was beautiful! Many times when I have been in sorely trying situations, the memory of that little one has come into my mind, and has buoyed me.

Some compared the incident to accusations of plagiarism that tanked an earlier presidential campaign in 1987 by President-elect Joe Biden, while others mocked Harris.

You Might Like

“Plagiarizing an MLK interview seems like the kind of thing you’ll get caught on. Why do ppl do this to themselves,” responded Seth Mandel, executive editor of the Washington Examiner.

“Joe Biden and Kamala Harris are two plagiarizing frauds. Biden plagiarized during law school and from RFK, Hubert Humphrey, JFK, and he stole the family history of a British politician. Now Kamala Harris plagiarized from MLK,” replied GOP Rapid Response Steve Guest.

[H/T: Fox News]