Barack Obama is winning over his successor in the White House
using his own favourite medium: Twitter. The former president tweeted a message
of racial tolerance - a quote from South African leader Nelson Mandela, no less
- and it has now become the most liked tweet in history.
At time of writing, more than 3.1 million people have liked the tweet, which shows former President Obama peering into a window at a group of young children accompanied by the quote "No one is born hating another person because of the color of his skin or his background or his religion...". It has also been retweeted 1.2 million times.
Twitter announced that it had become the most popular tweet ever, overtaking pop singer Ariana Grande's condolence tweet after the Manchester Arena attack in May of this year.
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Former President Obama's tweet was the first of three, continuing a longer quote from Mr Mandela that read: "People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite."
The photo was later revealed to have been taken by official White House photographer Pete Souza at a children's day care centre outside of Washington D.C. in the city of Betheseda, Maryland.
Mr Souza has been an outspoken critic of President Donald Trump and regularly uses images from his time as Barack Obama's official photographer to illustrate the differences between Obama's way of operating and Trump's methods.
People respond to events in Charlottesville; Credit: PA
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Obama's tweet came in the aftermath of the violence at the weekend in Charlottesville, Virginia, in which a woman was killed by a white supremacist. Neo-Nazi, white supremacist and alt-right groups held a rally in the small Virginia town that were met with counter-protests.
Thirty-two-year-old Heather Heyer was killed after a car ploughed into a group of demonstrators on Saturday, with 19 other people injured. James Field, a 20-year-old white supremacist, has been charged with murder.
President Trump was criticised after he apportioned blame to both sides of the protests without focussing on the white supremacist aspect. Members of his own party openly criticised the President, who later released a statement that mentioned white supremacist groups such as the Ku Klux Klan by name, before doubling down on Tuesday and again blaming 'both sides'.
His comments were widely condemned by both Democrats and Republicans.
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"We must be clear. White supremacy is repulsive. This bigotry is counter to all this country stands for. There can be no moral ambiguity," said Paul Ryan, Republican and Speaker of the House.
Meanwhile, former GOP candidate John McCain tweeted "There's no moral equivalency between racists & Americans standing up to defy hate& bigotry. The President of the United States should say so."
Featured Image Credit: PA ImagesTopics: Donald Trump, Barack Obama, USA, US
