This one caught on fast.

Love the idea of “quote magnets.” Never heard of it before.

I wonder if King ever said something about not rejoicing in the death of an enemy which was “improved” to fit the occasion, or if it was just made up out of whole cloth?

It is interesting to see the speed with which this unattributable quote was created and circulated. 

Are there teams of PR hacks and social engineers toiling in smoke-free rooms saying things like “What he should have said was _____” or “Wouldn’t it be better if he actually had said ______?”

Frightening thought, given the apparent persistence and potential import of this one.  The false quote certainly has some merit and I find that I have some sympathy for what it says, but I consider it fraudulent to afford it greater respectability by attributing it falsely to MLK. 

It’s out in the wild now, with legs grown a bit longer from controversy.

Another one going around:

“I’ve never wished a man dead, but I have read some obituaries with great pleasure.” – Mark Twain

NOT.

One claiming to have the whole story on the MLK quote Anatomy of a Fake Quotation

As droogie above points out above, it seems to have been initially an error and not done fraudulently in order to give the quote extra oomph as I suggested above. 

Here is another aspect of the story, this, with an interview of the woman whose words ”Accidentally Became Martin Luther King’s”

But someone did delete the quotation marks at some point.

Mark Twain on Cecil Rhodes: “I admire him, I frankly confess it; and when his time comes I shall buy a piece of the rope as a keepsake.”