Former President Barack Obama’s tweet in response to the horrid acts of violence in Charlottesville, Virginia, over the weekend now the most liked tweet in internet history.
In the tweet, Obama quoted Nelson Mandela’s autobiography Long Walk to Freedom. He wrote, “No one is born hating another person because of the color of his skin or his background or his religion…”
Violence in Charlottesville came as a result of clashes between white supremacists and counterprotesters. One woman, 32-year-old Heather Heyer, was killed after a man with ties to white nationalist groups slammed his car into a crowd of counterprotesters. Ninteen others were injured in the vehicular attack.
Obama was praised for rising to the occasion with what many are calling a “presidential voice.” While President Donald Trump did give his regards to the people of Charlottesville over Twitter, his “so sad” tweet did not give people the hope that Obama’s tweet inspired.
"No one is born hating another person because of the color of his skin or his background or his religion…" pic.twitter.com/InZ58zkoAm
— Barack Obama (@BarackObama) August 13, 2017
As of Tuesday morning, the tweet has nearly 2.5 million likes. For a period Tuesday, it was the second most-liked tweet of all time after Ariana Grande’s tweet following the bombing at her Manchester concert, which has 2.7 million likes.
https://twitter.com/ArianaGrande/status/866849021519966208
By Wednesday morning, Obama’s tweet had eclipsed Ariana Grande’s, garnering 3.1 million likes.
Editor’s note: This story has been updated for relevance.