Obama's response to Charlottesville becomes most-liked tweet ever

In the hours after Saturday's violent white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, former President Barack Obama tweeted a Nelson Mandela quote decrying racism and hatred, and on Tuesday night, it became the most-liked tweet in Twitter history.

The message, accompanied by a picture of Obama with children, reached the 2.7 million mark shortly after 10 p.m. ET, surpassing Ariana Grande's reaction to the Manchester bombing. Obama's tweet is also the fifth-most retweeted post in the platform's history. The former president has 93.3 million Twitter followers.

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Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.