WATCH: Kamala Harris tells plagiarized ‘fweedom’ story to Jimmy Fallon

Vice President-elect Kamala Harris's story about her own child that she lifted from a story told by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in 1965 is one she told not first to Elle magazine, but to Jimmy Fallon during a socially distanced episode of his late night talk show.

Back in June, Harris "well I was in a stroller," she laughed, "I was in a stroller, and um. So I was out there. And in fact my mother used to have a very funny story about how I was fussing and she said 'Kamala what do you want,' and I said, and this is how she would say it, and she said 'Kamala what do you want,' and I said 'fweedom.'"

"Aw come on," Fallon cooed.

It was a much cuter story when she would tell it, but that's the story she told," Harris laughed.

"Do you think that's what instilled in you to fight for what's right?" Fallon asked.

Harris recently told this same story to Elle magazine. It reads:

"Senator Kamala Harris started her life’s work young. She laughs from her gut, the way you would with family, as she remembers being wheeled through an Oakland, California, civil rights march in a stroller with no straps with her parents and her uncle. At some point, she fell from the stroller (few safety regulations existed for children’s equipment back then), and the adults, caught up in the rapture of protest, just kept on marching.

"By the time they noticed little Kamala was gone and doubled back, she was understandably upset. "My mother tells the story about how I’m fussing," Harris says, "and she’s like, 'Baby, what do you want? What do you need?’ And I just looked at her and I said, 'Fweedom.'"

It was then pointed out by activist Andray Domise that Harris' story was lifted from a January 1965, Playboy interview with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. about a girl in Birmingham, Alabama.

"I will never forget a moment in Birmingham when a white policeman accosted a little Negro girl, seven or eight years old," Dr. King said, "who was walking in a demonstration with her mother. 'What do you want?' the policeman asked her gruffly, and the little girl looked him straight in the eye and answered 'Fee-dom.' She couldn't even pronounce it but she knew. It was beautiful!"