MLK speech used in truck ad railed against consumerism and ads

Share

During Sunday night’s Super Bowl, you may have seen an ad for Dodge Ram trucks encouraging people to do community service — along with the video were audio clips from a Martin Luther King, Jr. speech from fifty years ago; but there’s been a push-back against using the words of a man who spoke out against consumerism in an ad for a truck company.

On Twitter, the King Center wrote, “Neither @TheKingCenter nor @BerniceKing is the entity that approves the use of #MLK’s words or imagery for use in merchandise, entertainment (movies, music, artwork, etc) or advertisement, including tonight’s @Dodge #SuperBowl commercial.”

Bernice King also posted the full speech from which the clips were taken (see below). It’s known as the Drum Major Instinct speech from fifty years ago, February 4, 1968.

In it, King say buying an expensive care is just feeding a repressed ego. We took calls from listeners who had something to say about using King’s words in an ad to sell automobiles.

Listen to the show here:

Listen to the full King speech in this Tweet by Bernice King:

The rest of the show was about Leonard Peltier.

 

Leave a Reply

  • (will not be published)

XHTML: You can use these tags: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <s> <strike> <strong>

You may also like

A woman in a radio studio. She wears studio monitor headphone and is listening to to the host, not in the picture, asking her a question.
Councilwoman Brandi Gabbard talks St. Pete’s downtown, affordable housing, FEMA and more

St. Petersburg City Councilwoman Brandi Gabbard has thoughts about the...

Florida Commissioner of Agriculture Wilton Simpson talks illegal immigration in Tampa

Listen: Florida’s Commissioner of Agriculture Wilton Simpson tackled the topic...

student meal
A poll finds that Floridians are going into debt over grocery costs

Grocery bills have been outpacing Floridian incomes for several years...

The Scoop: Fri. June 20, 2025, Tampa Bay and Florida headlines by WMNF

WMNF headlines including affordable housing repeal, new waterfront stadium proposal,...

Ways to listen

WMNF is listener-supported. That means we don't advertise like a commercial station, and we're not part of a university.

Ways to support

WMNF volunteers have fun providing a variety of needed services to keep your community radio station alive and kickin'.

The Righteous Rockers Experience
Player position: