‘Injustice’ Billboard Features Martin Luther King Jr., Whose Family Went Vegan

PETA Ad Says Nonviolence Should Be Our Watchword, With No Living Being Disrespected

For Immediate Release:
July 14, 2016

Contact:
Sophia Charchuk 202-483-7382

As people reflect on how to stop hatred and needless violence, PETA is negotiating with outdoor advertisers in Dallas to place a billboard with a plea for an ethic of all-encompassing respect. The ad features an image of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.—whose wife and son Dexter went vegan—next to his words “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere,” followed by “Respect for all.” PETA’s mission is to awaken people to oppression in all its forms, and PETA always collects donations for a local civil rights group after acts of hate have been committed, including in Dallas. The animal rights group believes the root cause of all disrespect is a failure to relate to and show compassion for “others.”

“PETA hopes to get people talking about being decent to all living beings, regardless of race, gender, religion, or species—because if we can relate to the animals slaughtered for our plates, it shouldn’t be that hard to relate to our fellow human beings,” says PETA President Ingrid Newkirk. “People often feel powerless to stop needless violence around them, yet everyone can demonstrate respect for other living beings by going vegan, the lifestyle adopted by the peace movement that stopped the Vietnam War. Martin Luther King was advised not to object to that war because it wasn’t a ‘black’ issue, but to him, all injustice was insupportable.”

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to eat”—notes that all animals experience joy, pain, fear, love, and grief and value their lives just as humans do. But in the meat industry, chickens’ and turkeys’ throats are cut while they’re still conscious, piglets’ tails and testicles are cut off without the use of painkillers, cows are hung upside down and often skinned while they’re still able to feel pain, and calves in the dairy industry are taken from their mothers within hours of birth. On the decks of fishing boats, fish suffocate or are cut open while they’re still alive.

For more information, please visit PETA.org.