Bernice King
| Bernice King | |
|---|---|
King in April 2014
|
|
| Born |
Bernice Albertine King March 28, 1963 Atlanta, Georgia, U.S. |
| Alma mater |
Grinnell College Spelman College Emory University |
| Occupation | CEO of The King Center |
| Parent(s) |
Martin Luther King Jr. Coretta Scott King |
| Family | Martin, Dexter, and Yolanda King |
Bernice Albertine King (born March 28, 1963) is an American minister best known as the youngest child of civil rights leaders Martin Luther King Jr. and Coretta Scott King. She was five years old when her father was assassinated. In her adolescence, King chose to work towards becoming a minister after having a breakdown from watching a documentary about her father. King was 17 when she was invited to speak at the United Nations. Twenty years after her father was assassinated, she preached her trial sermon. Inspired by her parents' activism, she was arrested multiple times during her early adulthood.
Her mother suffered a stroke in 2005 and, after she died in January 2006, King delivered the eulogy at her funeral. A turning point in King's life, King experienced conflict within her family when her sister Yolanda King and brother Dexter Scott King supported the sale of the King Center. After her sister died in 2007, she delivered the eulogy for her as well. She supported the 2008 presidential campaign of Barack Obama and called his nomination part of her father's dream.
King was elected president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference in 2009. Her father and elder brother Martin Luther King III had previously held the position. She was the first woman elected to the presidency in the organization's history, amidst the SCLC holding two separate conventions. King became upset with the actions of the SCLC, amid feeling that the organization was ignoring her suggestions and declined the presidency in January 2010.
King became CEO of the King Center only months afterward. King's primary focus as CEO of The King Center and in life is to ensure that her father's nonviolent philosophy and methodology (which The King Center calls Nonviolence 365) is integrated in various sects of society, including education, government, business, media, arts and entertainment and sports. King believes that Nonviolence 365 is the answer to society's problems and promotes it being embraced as a way of life.
Bernice King was born on March 28, 1963, in Atlanta, Georgia. The day after she was born, her father had to leave for Birmingham, Alabama, but he rushed back when it was time for Bernice and her mother, Coretta, to leave the hospital. He drove them home himself but, in what was all too typical with the work he was doing, had to leave them again within hours. Following her birth, Harry Belafonte realized the toll the Civil Rights Movement was taking on her mother's time and energy and offered to pay for a nurse to help Coretta with the Kings' four children. They accepted and hired a person that would help with the children for the next five or six years. Her father died a week after her fifth birthday.
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