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Bernice King - Christianity, The Law, Racial Justice, and Martin Luther's King Jr.'s Legacy- Part 1
47 Plays7 months ago
In this season of Interactions, Terri Montague, and Brandon Paradise, engage with contemporary leaders and social change agents regarding the influence and convergence of Christianity, the law, and racial justice. Today’s guest is Reverend Bernice King, the daughter of Corretta Scott and Martin Luther King Jr, a social activist in her own right and regularly speaks truth to power. Additionally, as the CEO of the King Center, Dr. King teaches the principles of nonviolent resistance, honors and shares her father’s legacy, and protects against its misuse. This podcast is produced by the Center for the Study of Law and Religion at Emory University in collaboration with Canopy Forum.
Bernice King: The King Center
Center for the Study of Law and Religion: Center for the Study of Law and Religion | Emory University School of Law | Atlanta, GA
Canopy Forum: Canopy Forum
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Transcript
Introduction and Alignment with Christ's Spirit
00:00:03
Speaker
I distinctly remember the voice of the Lord saying to me that your father really was an embodiment of the spirit of Christ in the earth. He was showing humankind what it means to be loved in action. And he gave us that example.
00:00:31
Speaker
Welcome to Interactions, a podcast exploring how law and religion interact in today's world and throughout history.
Podcast Overview: Law, Religion, and Racial Justice
00:00:39
Speaker
In this season of interactions, Terry Montague and I, Brandon Paradise, engage with contemporary leaders and social change agents regarding the influence and convergence of Christianity, the law, and racial justice in their work. This podcast is produced by the Center for the Study of Law and Religion at Emory University in collaboration with CanopyForum.org.
Dr. King's Role and Her Father's Legacy
00:01:01
Speaker
Today is the first of two episodes with the Reverend Dr. Bernice King. Not only is Dr. King the daughter of Coretta Scott and Martin Luther King Jr., she is also a social activist in her own right and regularly speaks truth to power. As the CEO of the King Center, Dr. King teaches the principles of nonviolent resistance, honors and shares her father's legacy, and protects against its misuse.
00:01:25
Speaker
In this episode, we talk with Dr. King about her parents and the foundation they have laid for today's community of activists. Dr. King, let's start with your father's legacy. How old were you when your father was assassinated and how did his murder shape your relationship to his legacy? So when my father was assassinated in 1968, April 4th, I had just turned five.
00:01:55
Speaker
one week prior, literally seven days prior, March 28th. Of course, I didn't know a lot about the work that he was doing at the time and obviously grew up with my mother talking to us at dinnertime, especially I remember those times about how they were trying to make the world better for all people and especially those that were
00:02:24
Speaker
the least of these as we described it, as she described it. And so there was a documentary called Montgomery to Memphis that we started watching in our household that began to help me to understand what my father was really involved in, my father and mother, should I say. And it really wasn't until I probably was in my teens
Identity and Parental Legacy
00:02:54
Speaker
that I fully realized that my mom and dad were trying to deal with conditions of racial discrimination, economic injustice, and more importantly, poverty. And additionally, militarism, as they called it. Some people say war.
00:03:23
Speaker
her daddy referred to this military event and war. And so through time, studying eventually, I studied my father. I didn't initially because I got called into the ministry. At the age of 17 and being a teenager, I wanted to finish being a teenager. I kind of saw the role of a minister is very serious and mature.
00:03:51
Speaker
And I didn't feel like I was at that stage to step into that role and responsibility.
Deepening Understanding of Her Father's Work
00:03:58
Speaker
And also I was concerned about my own identity, you know, would I be swallowed up in my father's identity because he was a pastor and would my life be about the shadow of Martin Luther King Jr. So I ran from that for about eight years. And even during the time period that I
00:04:19
Speaker
decided to go to theology school and law school at Emory University. I was at Candler and steel wrestling with whether or not I was going to answer this call and I did so in 1988. I started Candler in 1985, fall of 1985. At that point, I had not studied much. I just heard about my father, saw some films, hadn't really acquainted myself with
00:04:46
Speaker
much of his writings or anything. I heard periodic, you know, sermons and speeches. I took one course, I think it was with Dr. Nola Erskine at Candler, and I don't even remember the name, but it was Martin Luther King Jr. course. So that probably was my first real engagement outside of the context of what my mother shared going through the nonviolence training workshops as a pre-teen, as a teen.
00:05:17
Speaker
and the documentary, you know, and a few, you know, other things. And I still did not want to delve heavily into any of that. So it took about, I would say about a good 10 years before I really started engaging some of his books. So I was well into my 30s before I started even reading My Father Seriously.
00:05:46
Speaker
And I think if I fast forward to today, where I serve as the CEO of the King Center, I can honestly say it's being in this role of leadership that has kind of propelled me and pushed me to delve even more deeply into his writings, his teachings, and in particular, his thinking, you know, grounded, I believe, in scripture and in his faith.
00:06:16
Speaker
obviously blended with a lot of the theologians and the philosophers that he studied in and then, you know, the teachings of Mahatma Gandhi. I see myself as kind of
00:06:45
Speaker
extension and extension of who he was in this way. I was flying back to Atlanta from a trip. I think it was somewhere in the ballpark of 2010-11. And at that particular time, I was wrestling with who I am as a minister of the gospel, advancing the kingdom of God.
00:07:14
Speaker
and who I am as the daughter of Martin Luther King Jr., Coretta Scott King, but in particular my father.
Coretta Scott King's Influence and Vision
00:07:21
Speaker
And how do I reconcile what I saw kind of as his ministerial side, the spiritual side with this kind of secular side because I was speaking in a lot of secular audiences. And I felt very conflicted. And I distinctly remember the voice of the Lord saying to me,
00:07:43
Speaker
that your father really was an embodiment of the spirit of Christ in the earth. He was showing humankind what it means to be love in action. And he gave us that example. And when you hear King of Kings, because we use that phrase quite often,
00:08:09
Speaker
But we never stopped to think, okay, you're king of kings. Well, who are these kings that you're king of kings? Who are these kings? And he said, that's who your father was. He was one of those kings. And he gave an example. And your name, Bernice A. King, is be a king. So he was showing people how to be it. And your job now is to kind of push people to say, now, this is the example.
00:08:39
Speaker
of how we manifest Christ in the earth because we're so far away from the Bible. So here's a more current manifestation of what that means. And so I see myself as extending his legacy because the things that he taught around nonviolence and the dignity and the value and the worth of the person, the Imago Dei, so to speak.
00:09:01
Speaker
is what seems to be missing and lacking in today's society. We don't have a true reverence and respect for that in humankind. And so that's how I see my relationship is carrying that forward, you know, out of his nonviolent teachings.
00:09:25
Speaker
Thank you, Dr. King. In listening to your response, it reminds me of what a powerful force your mother, Coretta Scott King, was and the ways in which she was a significant activist in her own right. Many Americans primarily associate her with successful efforts to have the national holiday recognized in your father's name and honor. But what else should we remember about Coretta Scott King?
00:09:51
Speaker
Well, you know, the first thing is I want people to understand that she was not a widow. Um, or she was more than a widow. Let me say that, um, that when my father was assassinated, you know, he was, it was a poll, um, that indicated, uh, the percentage of people who really hated him. So he was one of the most hated persons in, in our nation. Um, and,
00:10:21
Speaker
Now, when you look at Martin Luther King Jr., his legacy, his work, he's one of the most loved persons in the world. But why is that? Arguably, because he's no longer with us. And so much of the work that he was doing, some of the very powerful words that he was speaking to us, he can no longer feel like a threat, so to speak.
00:10:51
Speaker
Some people would argue, yeah, we have an affinity for dead folk. So we're comfortable now. It's the comfortable king. But during his lifetime, it was the one who made us very uncomfortable, as I said, in January at the Commemorative Service here in Atlanta. I said the inconvenient king. But really for me, it's because Coretta Scott King,
00:11:20
Speaker
carried that legacy forward in a very strategic way. She knew how to plan and implement, and she knew who was needed to help her get things done. So she was very thoughtful and intentional and deliberate in much of what she did to ensure that Martin, as she called him,
00:11:49
Speaker
would be institutionalized in our nation. She was doing it not as a person who lost a spouse and was trying to figure out how do I carry his work forward, merely. She was doing it as an effort to continue the work that they were doing jointly. And he just happened to be, his life just happened to be taken from us early in the process.
00:12:19
Speaker
So she's praying like, okay, how do we capture all of this? So if you go back, this was a woman who, before she met Martin Luther King Jr., understood through time, of course, from her early years asking questions, which is very important for children, the curiosity, you know, why am I here? What purpose do I serve? How do I change whatever it is that, you know, is right before me that
00:12:48
Speaker
is troubling, that is unjust, that's disturbing, that needs to be different. Asking those questions and going on that journey, things started revealing themselves to her at Antioch College where she attended. So she was a part of the progressive political party there. She was a part of the NAACP.
Preserving Martin Luther King Jr.'s Legacy
00:13:13
Speaker
She was a peace activist.
00:13:16
Speaker
So by the time she met Martin Luther King Jr., she had already been prepared to engage in the work that they jointly engaged in with so many others and had a foresight to understand the moment in history that they were in.
00:13:39
Speaker
It seems your mother appreciated the importance of history and your father's work for future generations in ways that even he may not have imagined. What should we be carrying forward in her example? She clearly understood that she said that freedom, struggle is a never-ending process. Freedom is never really one. You earn it and win it in every generation. But where are those tools, where are those examples
00:14:08
Speaker
that we can utilize in our generation that we can extract from that historical time period. And so, you know, as she, you know, began to develop this legacy, I mean, he left so much behind, but as you know, you can leave stuff behind. And if there's nobody there to steward it forward, then it dissipates and it gets lost.
00:14:38
Speaker
So she, she knew that this was an important thing to be preserved so that future activists, future organizers, future leaders, um, that society in general would be able to use those same tactics. And so she thought about, okay, now that they did this, what can we institutionalize for them so that they will have what we
00:15:08
Speaker
were exposed to and utilized in their movements. And that's why for her, it was about ensuring that the King Center would be founded in terms of his philosophy and methodology of nonviolence, that it would, at the heart and soul of it, it would empower current future generations in utilizing
00:15:36
Speaker
the Kingian philosophy and methodology of nonviolence to address, you know, conflict, conflict, interpersonal conflict, conflict between nations to address injustices in society and around the world to create a beloved community. And so she was a preservationist. You know, when we think about her, she's the architect of this legacy.
00:16:04
Speaker
She built one of the largest and most powerful, if not the largest social change brands, if I can use that word, in the world, and very powerful. People are still studying and learning from it and utilizing it. It's just so much here. But she also knew about building coalitions to get stuff done.
00:16:33
Speaker
You know, and she knew people's, she had an ability to study people, you know. And this is the thing about both of them. They knew what was needed, the type of person that would be needed for different roles and functions. They both were gifted in that regard. And that's so important.
00:17:02
Speaker
particularly in struggles today because right now it seems like if you are passionate about a cause, you know, whosoever will let them come, but we don't know how to determine where are people best suited. And so sometimes we malfunction because we have people in a protest who don't have the discipline.
00:17:30
Speaker
to be a part of that protest. And they can undermine the efforts, the nonviolent efforts that are happening. We don't understand that everybody doesn't have the capacity and discipline to sit at a table of negotiation because they become extremely
00:17:51
Speaker
emotional and their words will sometimes get in the way and their inability to really hear and try to understand the other side so you know what argument that you need to put forward. So all of this in Coretta Scott King and the first speech that Martin Luther King Jr. made as the leader of the Montgomery Improvement Association in 1955 when the bus boycott
00:18:21
Speaker
It was my mother who said to a member of the church that she couldn't go to the service. She had just delivered my sister. And so she said, take this tape, record her, because I want you to capture what Martin says tonight. And that's a good part of the reason why we have that, you know, first very important speech.
00:18:52
Speaker
I can't even imagine what it would be like if we didn't have it. We really captured what they were doing there in Montgomery. So did your mother encourage her children to get actively involved or was she more protective in wanting to shield you from those exposures too soon? It was a balance. You know, she was very sensitive to age.
00:19:21
Speaker
and what she felt was appropriate for you to be exposed to at certain times. With that said, there were things that she did, you know, encourage us to become a part of. There were things that she made sure that we were exposed to, but she never intentionally put her agenda on us. What she did is she exemplified certain behaviors. As I said, she made sure
00:19:49
Speaker
that we were surrounded by certain environments. And, you know, she built the King Center out of our home. So it was right there with us. We grew up with it. You know, the staff that came into the basement of our home. And then the things she talked about, as I said, at the dinner table quite often about the work that they were doing. But the greatest thing she did for me
00:20:19
Speaker
to allow me to just eventually evolve into the person that I am today without feeling a sense of resentment is you do not have to be me. You do not have to be your father, but whatever you do in this world, just be your best self.
00:20:44
Speaker
So that has relieved me over and over again, even as I do work similar to what they're doing. When people have said ugly things, you don't represent your father, your father would be ashamed of you. I remember what my mother said, you don't have to be.
00:21:02
Speaker
You don't have to be your father, but be your best self. And so that's what I strive to do on a day-to-day basis. And even as I'm making decisions, I'm not perfect, of course, because I'm still growing with my own issues, even around anger. I have to do a lot of work in that area so that my tongue doesn't become a weapon of destruction.
00:21:31
Speaker
Thank you so much for sharing all those candid insights.