Shaun King, a Morehouse College graduate and activist, became almost as talked about as the top contenders vying for the Democratic presidential nomination Wednesday after he made misleading claims about MSNBC’s Super Tuesday reporting.
King, who has faced controversy about his racial identity and advocacy fundraising, posted a "breaking" news post on Twitter Tuesday night. In it, he claims that MSNBC anchor Rachel Maddow reported that "multiple 'senior officials'" within the Democratic Party are interfering with the primaries to stop @BernieSanders."
Maddow tweeted King back directly late Tuesday, stating she “didn’t report any such thing.” King had not responded as of Wednesday evening. The writer and social activist has been using his Twitter platform, which includes more than 1 million followers, to share his support for Sanders, who won the California primary Tuesday night, and criticize former Vice President Joe Biden, who won 10 states in the Super Tuesday races.
In a tweet Sunday night, King made claims that staffers for former presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke were hurt by O’Rourke’s endorsement of Biden.
The 40-year-old Kentucky native’s latest claims on Super Tuesday attracted much ire from Twitter users, who said his “false” claims were in line with previous misleading statements.
The references to Rihanna in several tweets were in response to the pop singer honoring King at her Diamond Ball for his philanthropic work last year. In recent years, several fellow activists have disputed whether King’s efforts to raise funds for social justice are legitimate.
King, who has relaunched the Frederick Douglass publication The North Star and co-founded social justice lobbyist organization Real Justice PAC, has denied these claims.
The former pastor has also received backlash for identifying as black, which some do not believe. He addressed the racial identity issue in 2015.
"The reports about my race, about my past, and about the pain I've endured are all lies," King wrote on the website DailyKos.com, where he was once a staff writer. "I have been told for most of my life that the white man on my birth certificate is not my biological father and that my actual biological father is a light-skinned black man. My mother and I have discussed her affair. She was a young woman in a bad relationship and I have no judgment."
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