The (Shy) Woman Whose Words Accidentally Became Martin Luther King’s

Jessica Dovey did not intend to become the epicenter of an Internet-wide discussion about the nature of quotation, attribution, and Osama bin Laden. Yet that’s exactly what happened when Dovey’s Facebook-status sentiment — “I will mourn the loss of thousands of precious lives, but I will not rejoice in the death of one, not even an enemy” — became entangled with a Martin Luther King, Jr. quote she also posted. Within a day and through no fault of her own, Dovey’s words had gone viral, misattributed to King.