Florida Senator Marco Rubio was among many in Washington paying tribute to Rep. John Lewis. However, Rubio posted a picture of himself alongside the late Elijah Cummings, another civil rights leader who shares Lewis’ skin color.
Lewis, a Georgia Democrat, passed away on Saturday after a short battle with pancreatic cancer. As news of his death spread, lawmakers and public figures in Washington paid tribute to the longtime civil rights champion, who’d marched alongside Martin Luther King in Selma, Alabama in 1965, and received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2011.
READ MORE: Rep. John Lewis, iconic civil rights leader, dead at 80
Rubio joined in, writing on Twitter that “it was an honor to know & be blessed with the opportunity to serve in Congress with John Lewis a genuine & historic American hero.” Rubio accompanied his tweet with a photo of the two sharing a conversation, except the man pictured wasn’t Lewis. Instead it was Maryland Rep. Elijah Cummings, another black Democrat and civil rights activist, who’d died last October.
That’s the late Elijah Cummings, Senator @marcorubiopic.twitter.com/2bIvwcCGRd
Rubio even made the photo his profile picture, before deleting both as soon as the criticism rolled in.
“I know ALL BLACK PEOPLE LOOK ALIKE,” one black commenter tweeted, “but someone tell Rubio this is not John Lewis but Elijah Cummings.” His gaffe, another wrote, “is the most on-brand Republican thing ever.”
Some commenters were outraged, but others took the moment as an opportunity to laugh at the Florida Republican with a series of inaccurate photos.
It was an honor to know John Lewis pic.twitter.com/aIv0eB4Bvj
More. Hey, Marco Rubio, I just keep finding such great shots of you and John Lewis. @marcorubiopic.twitter.com/37l7JN266u
“Siri, are any of these John Lewis?”–Marco Rubio pic.twitter.com/3gJXjFECqz
Rubio acknowledged his “incorrect photo” in a follow-up tweet. This time, the lawmaker tweeted a shot of himself beside the real, actual John Lewis at an event in Miami. Rubio again made the photo his profile picture, and even included a link to a video of the event in question.
Earlier today I tweeted an incorrect photo John Lewis was a genuine American heroI was honored to appear together in Miami 3 years ago at an event captured in video belowMy God grant him eternal resthttps://t.co/aEm4MxKxBPpic.twitter.com/0UpWSG3vNQ
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