Bernice King 1963–

Baptist minister, lawyer, civil rights activist

On March 27, 1988, Bernice Albertine King gave her first sermon at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta; the church was packed with well-wishers witnessing the inaugural sermon of the third generation of Kings to preach there. As the youngest daughter of slain civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr., she had come before the public eye at an early age. Bernice King will long be remembered as the mournful five-year-old pictured with her mother, Coretta Scott King, at Martin Luther King’s funeral—a scene captured in a Pulitzer Prize-winning photograph by Moneta Sleet, Jr. As an adult, King maintains high visibility through her own work as preacher, public speaker, and civil rights activist.

Even decades after her father’s brutal assassination, the gravity of his work and his ideals live on. Coretta Scott King, an active public speaker and president of the Martin Luther King, Jr., Center for Nonviolent Social Change, made it her mission to teach her children and others about the civil rights struggle and its violent past. As she said in an interview with Lynn Norment of Ebony: “I will always be out here doing the things I do, and I’m not going to stop talking about Martin and promoting what I think is important in terms of teaching other people, particularly young people, his meaning so they can live in such a way to make a contribution to our advancement and progress.”

This philosophy was instilled in Bemice and her siblings. Yolanda, the eldest King child, is an actress, producer, lecturer, and director of cultural affairs at the King Center; Martin Luther III is active in Atlanta politics; and Dexter Scott King also works for the King Center and travels extensively on its behalf. All of them have chosen to spread their messages in their own way without any parental coercion. Bemice King told Essence: “My mother never tried to force us to do anything. We have made our own choices, and I can really credit my mother for that because she never wanted to make a choice for us. She always let us make our own decisions, and so anything I do in connection with the King Center and my father’s legacy, continuing his work, is something to which I feel a strong personal commitment.”

Bemice King has known for a long time what direction her activities would take. In the sixth grade, she decided she would become a lawyer and be the first black woman on the U.S. Supreme Court. When she was seventeen, she was called into the ministry. “I think that in a sense my calling to

At a Glance…

Born Bernice Albertine King, March 28, 1963; daughter of Martin Luther, Jr. (a civil rights pioneer) and Coretta (a social activist and singer; maiden name, Scott) King. Education: Spelman College, bachelor’s degree in psychology, 1985; Emory University, J.D. and M. Div., 1990. Religion: Baptist.

Intern with City Attorney’s Office, Atlanta, GA; student chaplain at the Georgia Retardation Center and at Georgia Baptist Hospital, 1985-90; first public speech, St. Sabina Church, Chicago, 1983; first sermon, Ebenezer Baptist Church, Atlanta, 1988; ordained Baptist minister, 1990; assistant minister at Ebenezer Baptist Church, 1990—; law clerk in Georgia’s Fulton County juvenile court system, 1990—. Chair, national advisory committee, National King Week College and University Student Conference on Kingian Nonviolence.

Member: Active Ministers Engaged in Nurturance (AMEN).

Addresses: Office —Ebenezer Baptist Church, 407 Auburn Ave. N.E., Atlanta, GA 30312; or c/o Martin Luther King, Jr., Center for Nonviolent Social Change, 449 Auburn Ave. N.E., Atlanta, GA 30312.

the ministry will be the perpetuation of the flame, the spirit of my father living on,” she told Ebony in 1987. She always had high goals and the belief that nothing could stop her from achieving them. In USA Weekend, her mother recalled, “Her feeling, at an early age, that there were no barriers where women were concerned was a good thing. Bernice had not been a part of segregation the way the generation earlier was. She was aware of it, of course, but she did not have many of the bitter experiences. So she felt things were pretty open to her. Bernice always set her goals pretty high.”

Heeded the Call to Serve

King decided to pursue her interests in both law and theology. After earning her bachelor’s degree at Spelman College, she enrolled in a dual-degree program at Emory University. In June of 1990 she finished the program and received her J.D. (doctor of jurisprudence) and M.Div. (master of divinity) degrees.

Despite her arduous studies, King still found time for her work as an activist and public speaker. She gave her first major speech in 1983, when she was only twenty years old, at St. Sabina Church in Chicago. Later that same year, she addressed the United Nations General Assembly in New York. In 1985, and again in 1986, she was arrested with her siblings while protesting South African apartheid. Two years later she gave her fist public sermon at Ebenezer Baptist Church. Since her graduation from Emory, King has had public speaking engagements at high schools, colleges, churches, and youth group centers.

King’s main message as a public speaker is that as individuals, we must do more to unite all people; as a country, the United States has not yet made adequate progress in the realm of race relations, civil rights, and social justice. At a high school graduation in East Palo Alto, California, for example, she told the students that while they should be proud of themselves, they have “to keep going.” She does not mince words. “We have brothers and sisters with forty and fifty dollar hairstyles and a nickel worth of brains,” she was quoted as saying in the Peninsula Times Tribune. “What we need is educated people of good will and moral courage who will stand up and be counted.”

Began to Speak Out on Global Issues

In advocating nonviolent change and a larger goal of world peace, King spoke out vehemently against the 1991 war in the Persian Gulf. According to the Los Angeles Times, she told an audience of nearly 2,000 at Santa Monica College that the war was a fight between “two men who have to satisfy their male egos.” And she pulls no punches when addressing powerful leaders directly. At the 1992 Martin Luther King Day ceremonies at the King Center, she spoke directly to President George Bush, who was sitting on the stage of Freedom Hall with her. As quoted in the Washington Post, she declared, “Lord, have mercy on us, for how dare we celebrate when the bank of justice has been robbed, the storehouse of knowledge had been contaminated, and the citadel of truth has been raped and violated. How dare we celebrate when the ugly face of racism still peers out at us.”

While Bernice may be voluntarily following in her father’s footsteps, it has at times been hard for her. She is often compared to her father, especially since she began preaching publicly. People who have seen them both give sermons claim that her mannerisms and inflections are very similar to his. On the occasion of her first sermon at Ebenezer, then mayor of Atlanta Andrew Young told Jet magazine, “It almost makes you believe preaching is hereditary. So many of her mannerisms and so much of her style is so much like her daddy.” King has resigned herself to the comparisons. She told USA Weekend, “It’s something I’m going to have to wrestle with for quite some time, but I’m willing to accept it because that’s part of the struggle; that’s part of being the child of someone who made such a great impact.”

Worked to Help Troubled Teens

If her style mirrors that of her father, many of her goals are uniquely her own. With her combined law and theology degrees, she helped establish a teen prison ministry where she can give legal and spiritual advice to troubled youth. “A lot of our young people who are locked up in our jails and prisons are there because they don’t know who they are, the potential that they have. I want to help them to channel their energy into more positive means,” she told USA Weekend. “It’s easy to hit somebody; it’s easy to strike out. It takes a whole lot of commitment to something higher than yourself not to do something delinquent.” She will be starting from scratch in such a program, since none had been set up prior to the early 1990s, but she is confident of her own success.

The theme of King’s first sermon at Ebenezer Baptist Church reflects her entire philosophy. “You’ve got to rise up above the crowd,” she told her congregation. This is what she continues to tell her audiences and what she intends to help young criminal offenders accomplish. King continues to distinguish herself as both a preacher and an activist in her own right, serving a new generation of people dedicated to social change.