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Daughter of Martin Luther King Jr. reflects on state of America
Dr. Bernice King, who continues to spread her father's teachings 54 years after his assassination, says it's going to take action and empowering the people with education and resources to achieve long-lasting equality.
NEW YORK - Easily one of the biggest highlights of The United Justice Coalition Social Justice Summit in New York was to hear from the daughter of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Dr. Bernice King.
She continues to spread her father's teachings nearly 60 years after his assassination, and says he tried to warn us decades ago what would happen if we didn’t start viewing each other as humans.
"You know, what I always say to people is, my father was a prophet well before his time," she said. "I think he foresaw, not literally everything that's happening, but the essence of what's happening. And that's why in this book, 'Where Do We Go From Here?', he kind of outlined what we needed to do. Not just as a nation, but as a world."
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She says her father was about unifying the entire human race.
"He also talked about our loyalties that we just can't be focused on our own tribes. But we have to figure out how to have an overriding loyalty to humanity. Because we have that kind of commitment to humanity, it doesn't matter what the race is, what the ethnicity is, what the gender is, what the socio-economic status is. You're gonna make sure that the right thing happens."
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When it comes to the current state of America, Dr. King says working together and demanding better from our elected officials is the only way to a path forward,
"Well the first word that comes to my mind is continuity," she explained. "When you're dealing with injustice, you Have to have forums and waves to bring people together, to get them information, to empower them, to prepare them for whatever needs to take place action-wise."
"And to get people the hope in the midst of the challenges we are facing in the social justice arena," Dr. King continued." I mean, a lot of people are losing hope, because it seems like we're not making a lot of progress, particularly related to the Black community and people of color. So these kinds of forums are important to provide that avenue of hope and resources in particular. Hopefully this summit has motivated people to remind them why we're sacrificing our time and our energy to go stand in all these long lines to fight the voter suppression like we know in Texas, Georgia, and everywhere, because our children lives depend on it."