Florida State Receives Backlash for Deleted Martin Luther King Jr. Tweet

The school attempted to celebrate Martin Luther King Jr. Day with an edited picture of King wearing a football glove and appearing to do the tomahawk chop.

Florida State's football program is facing backlash on social media after tweeting a photoshopped graphic of Martin Luther King Jr. in celebration of MLK Day on Monday.

In a since-deleted tweet, the Seminoles attempted to honor Dr. King with an edited picture of the civil rights icon wearing a football glove and appearing to do the tomahawk chop. The graphic included the team's "Do Something" slogan and the MLK quote, "If I cannot do great things, I can do small things in a great way."

The tweet was sent out by an account that claims to be "the official page of Florida State football recruiting" before it was removed less than an hour after it was posted.

The school was called out for injecting their brand into a tweet commemorating King's legacy:

For those who didn’t see this Florida State tweet before they took it down ... How does this happen? pic.twitter.com/bWsVURkHX8

— Myron Medcalf (@MedcalfByESPN) January 21, 2019

Florida State recruiting just tweeted out a picture of Martin Luther King wearing Nike Vapor receiving gloves and doing the Tomahawk Chop.

WHAT A COUNTRY. pic.twitter.com/1wmGH4I8oo

— Shehan Jeyarajah (@ShehanJeyarajah) January 21, 2019

Took less than an hour for FLorida State to rethink this one. Pretty incredible they thought using MLK as a recruiting gimmick was an idea worth pursuing in the first place. pic.twitter.com/Dw6Li5V61P

— Ryan McCrystal (@Ryan_McCrystal) January 21, 2019

MLK Day was first observed on Jan. 20, 1986 and continues to be celebrated annually on the third Monday of January.