Donald Trump Never Met Civil Rights Activist Martin Luther King, Despite AI Photos Circulating Online

Former President Donald Trump has been well acquainted with many influential people even before he joined politics. However, recently, his photos with assassinated American activist Martin Luther King have been raising questions about their 'meeting.' And, by far, there is no evidence the former President ever met the iconic Civil Rights leader in his [Martin's] lifetime.

People on social media are confused over a photograph of the two posing for the camera circulating online, including on X. An X account, @dom_lucre, posted the picture and captioned it, "The king with MLK." However, before it got more complicated, a Forbes report clarified that it was an AI-generated image.

In other words, the photo of the two men is fake and was made with the help of artificial intelligence. There's no evidence, in the past or the future, that the Republican frontrunner ever met Luther King, who was assassinated on April 4, 1968, at which point Trump was merely 21. 

The X account has been under scrutiny for sharing sensitive content online. Previously, it posted child sex abuse material to the social media site. The site's owner and tech billionaire, Elon Musk, reinstated the banned handle again, raising questions about how the company regulates who posts what.

This further led to the involvement of Australian politicians, where the matter reached the court and dragged the head of global government affairs at X, Nick Pickles, who was asked about the incident, but the answer couldn't satisfy people. Pickles said the account might be posting 'out of outrage.'

Several other accounts on X have been sharing fake AI-generated photos of Trump with Luther King. Two other images went viral in July 2023, and despite being unreal, they raked up millions of views, as shared by Brigitte Gabriel, the founder of the Trump-supporting political organization Act for America.

The account captioned, "Two of our nation's greatest advocates for Civil Rights: MLK and DJT." In two days, the image garnered over eight million views. A second image read, "MLK Jr. and President Donald J. Trump. Two of my favorite Americans." This fake photo received fewer views but was eventually circulated on social media platforms like Facebook and TikTok.

Trump has had a history of boasting about his 'art of delivery,' and in 2022, speaking to the Faith and Freedom Coalition in Nashville, Tennessee, the GOP front-runner compared himself to Luther King. Trump compared his own speech to the activist's famous 'I Have a Dream' speech on the National Mall on July 4, 2020, and on January 6, 2021, near the White House, as per CNN. Trump stated, "On July 4, I gave a speech two years ago at the mall, and it was the same mall that … the great Martin Luther King Jr. gave [his speech]... And Dr. King gave a speech and it was great. … They showed the picture and it was massive. … They said it was a million people. … Then I gave my speech and they showed the same thing. … Everything was identical. … I gave my speech. So his, they said 1 million people."

The real estate mogul continued, "So his, they said 1 million people. My pictures were exactly the same, but the people were slightly closer together. They were more compact. … There were more people, they were tighter together if you look at it. … Dr. Martin Luther King had a million, and that’s fine. Donald Trump with more people, had 25,000." However, as per the National Archives, it was 250,000 people—not a million—that were in attendance for MLK's speech.