Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 15:53, 1 September 2015

Jeffrey Shaun King is an American writer, entrepreneur, preacher and civil rights activist. He is noted for his use of social media to promote religious, charitable and social causes including the Black Lives Matter movement. Since September 2014, he has been a contributing writer for Daily Kos.

In August 2015, a Breitbart writer reported on false claims that King had misrepresented his biracial identity. A right-wing blogger made this claim based on information from his birth certificate, which lists white parents. King responded that the allegations were "lies," stating that the man listed on his birth certificate is not his biological father, and that his biological father is a "light-skinned black man."

Education

King received a scholarship from Oprah Winfrey to attend Morehouse College, a private historically black liberal arts school for men located in Atlanta, Georgia.

Career

In 2008 Shaun King founded a church in Atlanta, Georgia called "Courageous Church". He made use of social media to recruit new members. Prior to that he was a pastor at Total Grace Christian Center in DeKalb County, Georgia,

In March 2010, while still a pastor, he founded aHomeinHaiti.org as a subsidiary of Courageous Church and used eBay and Twitter to raise $1.5 million to send tents to Haiti after the 2010 Haiti Earthquake. Desperate Housewives star Eva Longoria was a spokesperson for the campaign. This inspired him to launch TwitChange.com, a charity auction site. Twitchange held Twitter charity auctions on eBay where celebrities offered to retweet winning bidders' tweets in exchange for support of a particular charity. A notable campaign raised hundreds of thousand of dollars to build an orphanage in Bonneau Haiti.

In 2012 he resigned from the Courageous Church citing personal stress and disillusionment.

In 2012 he founded HopeMob, a charity site that using voting to select a particular person's story and then raise money for that story until its goal was met. The money went to the organization that provided what the person's needs, not to the person individually. After one goal was met, the next story in line would then get funds raised.

In 2014 he and two coninventors, Ray Lee and Vincent Tuscano, were awarded US patent 8,667,075, "System and method for implementing a subscription-based social media platform". This patent was filed by the startup he founded @Upfront.

In 2015 he wrote the self-help book “The Power of 100”.

Activism

King has written extensively about incidents in the Black Lives Matter movement, gaining prominence during the shooting of Michael Brown. King wrote an article analyzing the Brown crime scene, and argued that the evidence suggested that officer Darren Wilson's life was not in danger during the shooting.

King became a contributing blogger for the politically liberal website, the Daily Kos, in September 2014. His contributions to the website have centered around civil rights issues and violence in Ferguson, Missouri and Charleston, South Carolina as well as allegations of police brutality toward the black community.

King started Justice Together, an organization whose stated goal is ending police brutality.

Fundraising controversy

King has raised money for multiple causes including the Tamir Rice shooting, and various incidents where the Black Lives Matter movement has been involved. Through the fund-raising website, YouCaring.com, King raised $60,000 for the family of Tamir Rice. Rice, a 12-year old resident of Cleveland, Ohio, was killed in 2014 by two Cleveland city policemen after they responded to a complaint "of a male black sitting on a swing and pointing a gun at people". After learning the child had not been buried as of five months after the the shooting and the child's mother had moved into a homeless shelter, King started the fund to assist the Rice family. The family's attorney, Timothy Kucharski was alerted to the existence of the fund, however, neither he nor the Rice family had heard of King or the fundraiser nor had any money been received. Eventually, the money raised was seized by the court and placed into a trust for the Rice family. King and the Rice family's legal counsel, Benjamin Crump, then started a second charity drive for the Rice family, with the proceeds going directly to the family. An additional $25,000 was raised.

Personal life

Shaun King was born in 1980. He grew up in Woodford County, Kentucky and attended Huntertown elementary school and Woodford County High School. He is married with 5 children. Three of his children are biological with his wife. Two are nieces he has custody of. King identifies as biracial and has written extensively about his experiences as a minority.

High School Assault

One of his experiences in high school was what he considered a hate crime assault. King stated a "dozen 'rednecks'" had beat him and the injuries caused him to miss a portion of two years of high school due to multiple spinal surgeries. The detective who investigated the case in 1995 described King's injuries as "minor". The associated police report noted that the incident revolved around a fight involving a student who defended his girlfriend after being allegedly threatened by King. A band teacher, two fellow students from King's high school, as well as King's wife, posted their recollection of the event to Facebook, backing King's account. An unnamed family member told CNN's Don Lemon that the fight was because King was a white guy dating a black girl. A number of other eye witnesses have described the assault as clearly being motivated by King being perceived as black, describing how he was routinely attacked with racial slurs because of his curly black hair.

Questions regarding race

In August 2015, Milo Yiannopoulos, a writer for Breitbart reported on posts by blogger Vicki Pate, who falsely claimed King had misrepresented his biracial identity. She based this claim on his birth certificate, which was part of the public record and lists white parents. Yiannopolous questioned if King had misled Oprah Winfrey by accepting an Oprah Scholarship to Morehouse College, a historically black school

King denounced the allegations as "lies", writing in a blog post on DailyKos and in a statement to The Washington Post that his birth certificate did not reflect his biological parentage, saying: "I refuse to speak in detail about the nature of my mother's past, or her sexual partners, and I am gravely embarrassed to even be saying this now, but 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". King says he received a full scholarship to Morehouse due to his grades and leadership skills, and that "I wasn’t appropriating or faking, but living out my life."

His wife, Rai, wrote a Facebook post supporting Shaun, saying that "Regarding his race, he has never lied. Not once," and that his life "is a unique expression of this country’s sordid and ridiculous history with race." Several of King's classmates and friends have backed King's position. Corey Richardson, a Morehouse classmate, told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, “He is black. A light-skinned black guy. That is what he is."

The New York Daily News criticized the attacks on King in an editorial which noted that while King is "a public figure deserving of scrutiny ... attempting to discredit opponents by delving into their racial identities without far more care than shown here is repugnant."

References

1. ^ Lowery, Wesley; Miller, Michael E. (August 20, 2015). "Activist Shaun King says man on birth certificate isn't his biological father". Washington Post.
2. ^ Doug Criss and Dana Ford (August 20, 2015). "Black Lives Matter activist Shaun King addresses race reports". CNN. Retrieved August 20, 2015.
3. ^ Southall, Ashley (August 19, 2015). "Activist Shaun King Denies Claims He Lied About Race and Assault". The New York Times.
4. Lartey, Jamiles (August 21, 2015). "Black Lives Matter activist refutes allegations that he lied about his race". The Guardian.
5. "Ripple Effect of One Act of Kindness - Oprah Scholarship". Oprah.com.
6. Scott Marshall, “Shaun King: Courageous Church, Atlanta”, Outreach (magazine) June 7, 2011
7. "Bishop Johnathan Alvarado Focus of Prosecutors", 11 Alive Atlanta, video at 0:29
8. Marcia Wade Talbert “Tweets for Good: Atlanta pastor transforms microphilanthropy with celebrity Twitter auctions”, Black Enterprise, June 1, 2011
9. "TheGrio's 100: Shaun King, leveraging social media for greater good". theGrio.
10. ^ Thorpe, Devin. "Shaun King Brings Hope(Mob) to Crowdfunding". Forbes.
11. Gross, David (September 16, 2010). "Pay for celebs to tweet for you (and charity)". CNN.
12. Audi, Tamara (September 23, 2010). "Celebrities Auction Tweets to Raise Money for Haitian Orphans - WSJ". The Wall Street Journal.
13. ^ Nicola Menzie, “HopeMob CEO and Retired Pastor Shaun King Talks Churches, Technology, New Startup”, Christian Post, August 20, 2013
14. Amy Neumann “Social Good Stars:HopeMob's Shaun King”, Huffington Post, August 13, 2012
15. Shaun King entry on AngelList
16. “Upfront Awarded Far-Reaching Patent for Premium Mobile Content”, press release, 6 March 2014.
17. System and method for implementing a subscription-based social media platform, September 12, 2013 {{citation}}: Unknown parameter |country-code= ignored (help); Unknown parameter |inventor-first= ignored (help); Unknown parameter |inventor-last= ignored (help); Unknown parameter |inventor2-first= ignored (help); Unknown parameter |inventor2-last= ignored (help); Unknown parameter |inventor3-first= ignored (help); Unknown parameter |inventor3-last= ignored (help); Unknown parameter |patent-number= ignored (help)
18. “Shaun King, author, “The Power of 100”, The Marilu Henner Show, January 7, 2015
19. Thomas, Dexter (July 22, 2015). "Suspicion over 'glitches' in Sandra Bland arrest video shouldn't surprise us". Los Angeles Times.
20. Kos (October 1, 2014). "Meet our newest writer, Shaun King". Daily Kos. Retrieved August 19, 2015.
21. "Search results from Daily Kos". Daily Kos. Retrieved August 19, 2015.
22. Ross, Chuck (August 17, 2015). "More Damning Details Emerge About Black Lives Matter Activist's Hate Crime Claim". The Daily Caller.
23. "Justice Together". Justice Together.
24. "Tamir Rice Shooting - Cleveland Police Dispatch Radio". YouTube. November 24, 2014.
25. Izadi, Elahe; Holley, Peter (November 26, 2014). "Video shows Cleveland officer shooting 12-year-old Tamir Rice within seconds". The Washington Post. Retrieved November 26, 2014.
26. Tom McCarthy in New York, Tamir Rice: video shows boy, 12, shot 'seconds' after police confronted child Guardian.com. Retrieved November 26, 2014.
27. Lowery, Wesley (May 4, 2015). "As investigation enters fifth month, Tamir Rice's mother has moved into a homeless shelter". The Washington Post. Retrieved August 19, 2015.
28. "Funds Raised for Rice Family Get Caught in Legal Morass; New Fundraising Effort Under Way". Cleveland Scene.
29. ^ Wesley Lowery (May 5, 2015). "Online activists raised $60K for Tamir Rice's family — so where did all that money go?". The Washington Post. Retrieved August 19, 2015.
30. Michele Richinick "Black Lives Matter Leader Shaun King Denies He Lied About Race and Assault", Newsweek, 20 August 2015
31. "Woodford native Shaun King responds to questions about his race" WKYT, 21 August 2015
32. Alexis Stevens, "Activist Shaun King, a Morehouse grad, denies lying about race" Atlanta Journal Constitution, 20 August 2015
33. Anderson, Troy (March 2012). "Innovative entrepreneur Shaun King has mastered the art of using social media for social good". Rebel Magazine. Mediabistro.
34. Ross, Chuck (July 21, 2015). "Ferguson Activist's Hate Crime Claim Disputed By Police". The Daily Caller.
35. German Lopez. "The Shaun King controversy, explained - Vox". Vox.
36. "Black Lives Matter activist, Shaun King, might be white". NY Daily News.
37. Cris, Doug (August 20, 2015). "Is Black Lives Matter's Shaun King lying about his race?". CNN.
38. German Lopez (August 21, 2015). "The Shaun King controversy, explained". Vox.com. {{cite web}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |1= (help)
39. Stableford, Dylan (August 20, 2015). "Shaun King: 'White man on my birth certificate is not my biological father'". Yahoo!.
40. ^ King, Shaun (August 20, 2015). "Race, love, hate, and me: A distinctly American story". DailyKos.
41. Shaun King's Wife, Rai King, Takes to Facebook to Shut Down Rumors. Brammer, Imani. Essence, August 21, 2015
42. Bentley, Rosalind; Suggs, Ernie (August 20, 2015). "Activist Shaun King says he hasn't lied about his race". Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

External links

• Shaun King on Twitter
• Shaun King on Facebook
• JusticeTogether.org

• Living people
• American writers
• American political writers
• Civil rights activists
• Morehouse College alumni
• African-American-related controversies
• African-American studies scholars
• African-Americans' civil rights activists