Martin Luther King Jr's daughter just called out Pepsi for its controversial ad (PEP)

pulse

April 5, 2017 6:13 PM

The youngest daughter of Martin Luther King Jr. just took to Twitter to call out Pepsi for its ad campaign, starring Kendall Jenner.

Martin Luther King Jr.'s youngest daughter took to Twitter Wednesday to call out Pepsi for a recent ad starring Kendall Jenner.

"If only Daddy would have known about the power of #Pepsi," Bernice King tweeted on Wednesday, alongside a photo of her father being pushed back by police.

The image of Martin Luther King Jr. stands in stark contrast to the image of Jenner in Pepsi's ad, in which the model joins a protest and makes a police officer smile by handing him a can of soda.

Bernice King is the CEO of the King Center, an organization dedicated to carrying on her parents' legacies of nonviolent social change. Tuesday was the 49th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.'s assassination.

King isn't the only person criticizing Pepsi's ad. The commercial immediately sparked controversy when it was released Tuesday, with critics saying the ad was tone deaf and co-opted imagery from a Black Lives Matter protest.

"This is a global ad that reflects people from different walks of life coming together in a spirit of harmony, and we think that's an important message to convey," Pepsi said in a statement to Business Insider on Tuesday.

The company declined to say whether or not the commercial will still be aired on television and promoted via social media following the backlash.

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