In an embarrassing blunder, the White House has attributed an Oval Office carpet quotation to African-American civil rights movement leader Martin Luther King Jr who never claimed it as his own.
The original author was in fact a now-forgotten 19th century activist, Theodore Parker, a Boston preacher and campaigner against slavery, the Daily Telegraph reported in its online edition.
Among a series of quotes woven into the edge of the Oval Office’s new beige carpet are the words: “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.”
King often used the phrase in his campaigns for black rights, which paved the way for the current White House occupant to emerge as the first black leader of America. But, he never claimed he had come up with it as his own. Parker also first used the phrase “government of all the people, by all the people, for all the people” 13 years before President Abraham Lincoln, another great inspiration for US President Barack Obama. It too is woven into the rug. —PTI