Shaun King

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For other people named Shaun King, see Shaun King (disambiguation).

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Shaun King
File:Shaun King at Suffolk University 7.png
Shaun King at Suffolk University in Boston, 2017
Born Jeffery Shaun King
(1979-09-17) September 17, 1979 (age 44)
Franklin County, Kentucky, U.S.
Nationality White American
Occupation
  • Activist
Movement Black Lives Matter
Spouse(s) Rai King
Children 5

Jeffery Shaun King (born September 17, 1979) is a far-left White American extremist, black supremacist, race agitator and co-founder of Real Justice PAC. King is known for his use of social media to promote left-wing political causes, including the Black Lives Matter movement.

King was raised in Kentucky and attended Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia. After college, he worked as a high school teacher in Atlanta. He then launched a number of internet campaigns, such as aHomeinHaiti.org, TwitChange.com, and HopeMob.org.

King is currently a writer-in-residence at Harvard Law School’s Fair Punishment Project and contributes to the Tom Joyner Morning Show, The Intercept and The Appeal. Previously, he contributed to the New York Daily News, Daily Kos, and The Young Turks. In 2018, King co-founded Real Justice PAC, which supports far-left candidates running for district attorney offices, and launched The North Star.

Early life and education

King was born and raised in Versailles, Kentucky.[1] Although the name of Jeffrey Wayne King clearly appears on King's birth certificate, King alleges that his actual biological father was a "light-skinned black man."[2][3] By second grade, King's mother, Naomi Kay (Fleming) King, was raising King and his brother as a single parent.[4] King attended Huntertown Elementary School and Woodford County High School.[5][6] King's mother worked at the same light-bulb factory for more than 40 years.[7]

High school fights

In high school, King was involved in a one-on-one fight with another boy over a girl in which he suffered minor injuries.[8] Keith Broughton, the investigating detective, said he interviewed multiple witnesses, including a teacher who broke up the fight, who characterized the fight as a one-on-one altercation.[8]

College

King attended Morehouse College, a private, historically black men's college in Atlanta, Georgia, where he majored in history.[9] After graduation in 2002, King was a research assistant for Morehouse history professor Alton Hornsby Jr.[10] In 2018, King earned his master's degree in history from Arizona State University.[11]

Career

King has agitated extensively about incidents in the Black Lives Matter movement, gaining prominence during the events following the allegedly racist shooting of Michael Brown. King wrote an article about the Brown crime scene, and claimed that officer Darren Wilson's life was not in danger during the shooting.

King became a contributing blogger for the leftist website, the Daily Kos, in September 2014.[12] His contributions to the website have focused on racial agitation, promoting violence in Ferguson, Missouri, and Charleston, South Carolina, as well as allegations of police brutality, especially toward blacks.[13]

On October 2, 2015, King joined New York Daily News as a writer, where he would focus on reporting and commentary on left-wing causes, alleged police brutality, and race provocation.[14] On December 28, 2016, Cenk Uygur announced that King had been hired as a political commentator for The Young Turks.[15] King left the Daily News in August 2017.[16]

King has written extensively about his supposed experiences as an allegedly black person.

The North Star

In 2019, King launched a website named The North Star. King's The North Star site has articles, podcast episodes, and videos for a subscription fee.[17]

Activism

Alleged police brutality

In August 2015, King launched Justice Together, an organization to allege police brutality and agitate for left-wing causes.[18] To the surprise of many of the group's members, King unilaterally disbanded the organization in the fall of 2016.[19] In September 2016, King proposed a Injustice Boycott for December of that year.[20][21]

Assault by DeAndre Harris

In 2017, King was involved with the allegation of assault against DeAndre Harris. DeAndre Harris was later served with an arrest warrant sought by Harold Crews, a real estate lawyer, when Harris had hit him with a flashlight during an altercation prior to the Market Street Garage brawl. Harris was later acquitted of misdemeanor assault by a local judge after King's involvement.

Tamir Rice fundraising

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 Rice's family. 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."[22][23][24]

King started the fund to assist the Rice family; however, family attorney Timothy Kucharski stated in May 2015 that neither he nor the Rice family had heard of King or the fundraiser, nor had they received any money.[25][26]

Jazmine Barnes shooting

7-year old Jazmine Barnes was killed in a drive-by shooting in Houston at 7 a.m. December 30, 2018. The unknown assailant pulled up along side the family's truck and opened fire, injuring the mother and other child. King posted the mugshot of a white male (Robert Paul Cantrell) on Twitter who he alleged as involved in the shooting. King said in a deleted tweet "We've had 20 people call or email us and say he is a racist, violent asshole and always has been. Just tell me everything you know." Police later said the man was not connected with the crime, and King deleted the tweet, though not until after the man had received threats on social media. [27] The incident was revived in late July 2019 when Cantrell committed suicide in his jail cell, where he was being held on separate robbery and evasion charges. He told his lawyer, just before he died, that he was concerned about the death threats that his family was still receiving in the aftermath of the false allegations by King of his involvement in Jazmine Barnes’ murder.[28]

Real Justice PAC

In 2018, King co-founded Real Justice PAC, a political action committee to help elect prosecutors who support left-wing judicial philosophy at the county and city levels.[29][30]

Controversies

Questions regarding race

In August 2015, Milo Yiannopoulos questioned King's black identity in an article for Breitbart News. Yiannopoulos reported that King's birth certificate lists Naomi Fleming and Jeffrey Wayne King, both of whom are white, as King's parents[2] and that a police report cited King's race as "white."[31]

King alleged that the man listed on his birth certificate is his adoptive father and that his mother has told him his biological father supposedly was a "light-skinned black man."[4][8] Family members and classmates have stated that they understood King to be biracial growing up.[32][2][33]

Sherita Dixon-Cole

On May 20, 2018, King accused a white Texas state trooper of raping Sherita Dixon-Cole, an African-American human resources professional.[34][35] The trooper arrested Dixon-Cole for drunk driving and King based his accusation on statements she and her family made to King and Philadelphia lawyer S. Lee Merritt. King's social media posts, which identified the trooper by name, went viral and threats were made against the arresting trooper as well as another trooper with the same last name.[36] The Texas Department of Public Safety (TXDPS) released nearly two hours of body cam footage on May 22 that exonerated the trooper.[37]

Merritt, though not King, subsequently apologized for the false accusation and national attention he had brought to the case.[38] King deleted his social media posts after the body cam video was released.[38][39][40]

Fundraising controversies

King has been the target of claims that he has previously raised funds for causes that were never received by those he was fundraising for. According to BuzzFeed News, he founded an organization called Justice Together, which he raised several thousand dollars for, and then abruptly shuttered.[41] He started a different organization a few months later called "Justice. That's All." that he also closed a few months after founding. In one case, a former member of the organization who asked to have donation returned said that King refused to refund her money.[42] An investigation done by Goldie Taylor of The Daily Beast detailed discrepancies in amounts raised for different charities such as a Haiti relief project, and in one case, starting a crowdfunding project for the family of Tamir Rice without their knowledge.[43] Activists on Twitter questioned if he took the $100,000 reward money for information that led to the arrest of the men who shot Jazmine Barnes.[44]

On January 15, 2019, King tweeted that he was pursuing legal action against activists on Twitter who questioned his previous fundraisers.[44] His attorneys sent cease-and-desist letters to an unnamed number of people; one a young Black activist who stated in a response, "this was a heavy-handed and unnecessary act by someone claiming to be committed to justice and uplifting Black people."[44] David Dennis Jr. wrote in News One that the purpose of the cease-and-desist letters seemed to be "old-fashioned intimidation and forcible silencing."[45]

King has denied all allegations of wrongdoing. He wrote an editorial explaining the purpose of taking legal action and addressed some specific critiques levied against him.[46]

On September 12, 2019, Black Lives Matter activist DeRay McKesson wrote a lengthy article raising multiple concerns in regards to King, especially related to fundraising.[47]

On May 25, 2020, George Floyd died while in police custody, which led to Antifa and Black Lives Matter extremists rioting across the United States and other Western countries.

Personal life

King is married with five children.[48] Three of his children are biological with his wife and two are legally adopted. He also has fostered children.[18]

See also

References

  1. ↑ "Versailles leaders discuss Shaun King's critical comments", WKYT.com, August 31, 2015
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
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  8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 8.2 Cite error: Invalid <ref> tag; no text was provided for refs named NYT
  9. ↑ Cite error: Invalid <ref> tag; no text was provided for refs named AJC2
  10. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  11. ↑ https://twitter.com/shaunking/status/993556327170564096?lang=en
  12. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  13. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  14. ↑ NY Daily News hires columnist and activist Shaun King. CNNMoney, October 2, 2015
  15. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  16. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
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  18. ↑ 18.0 18.1 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  19. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
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  22. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
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  27. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  28. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  29. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  30. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  31. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  32. ↑ Cite error: Invalid <ref> tag; no text was provided for refs named CNN20150820
  33. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  34. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  35. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  36. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  37. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  38. ↑ 38.0 38.1 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  39. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  40. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  41. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  42. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  43. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  44. ↑ 44.0 44.1 44.2 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  45. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  46. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  47. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  48. ↑ Cite error: Invalid <ref> tag; no text was provided for refs named CHP

External links

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