#berniceking

Martin Luther King, Jr.'s daughter:

Be A King :: @BerniceKing

Alex Pretti was a Minneapolis ICU nurse who spent his days caring for and saving others. Today, he was shot and killed by a Border Patrol Agent. Alex’s life was extinguished by state violence. We must tell the truth about what is happening.

My father warned us, “When evil men plot, good men must plan. When evil men burn and bomb, good men must build and bind.”

What we are witnessing now (masked raids, people taken without due process, vigilante, Gestapo, and slave patrol-like tactics normalized under the color of law) is a moral crisis.

Nonviolence demands more than outrage; it demands action.

Congress must dismantle ICE; enact just, humane immigration policies; and ensure implementation of the policies by people who honor the humanity of Black and Brown immigrants, respect those raising their voices in support of immigrants, and seek the safety of community.

The blood of those who are being kidnapped and unjustly killed by agents with impunity is not only on the hands of those who pull the trigger, but on every lawmaker and every court that has the power to intervene and chooses silence.

Creating the Beloved Community requires truth, accountability, and the courage to act before more lives are lost.

Bernice King, daughter of Martin Luther King and Coretta Scott King, gave an inspiring talk to over 700 audience members Friday night at St. Louis County Library Headquarters. The event was the kick-off for the library’s Black History Celebration.

Ms. King shared a powerful message of hope, telling the audience "If you believe you're supposed to achieve something, do not give up, keep moving forward.”

Bernice was only five-years-old when her father was assassinated. She spoke of her mother’s strength and courage in preserving the King legacy. "Coretta Scott King is the architect of the King legacy. She cannot be lost in time. This woman was multifaceted."

Ms. King expressed deep gratitude for her parents and their choices. "Lives have been saved, our nation has been saved because of the decisions my parents made to give their lives to the cause.”

An audience member asked how do we move forward given the current divisive political climate? Ms. King encouraged honest, transparent conversations. “We're on this earth together, we must find a common space to coexist and create a healthy humanity."

See more photos from the event here.

I do not know when or where Dr. King made the speech from which this clip was taken (I have researched for several years). I watch this often - especially when I hear white supremacists and white liberals alike attempt to sanitize Dr. King's radical, revolutionary messages to us. Watch him speaking more of these powerful, transformative words on @youtube: https://youtu.be/voV9ld-Qooc

"I come here tonight to plead with you. Believe in yourself and believe that you are somebody. I said to a group last night: Nobody else can do this for us. No document can do this for us. No Lincolnian emancipation proclamation can do this for us. No Johnsonian civil rights bill can do this for us.

If the Negro is to be free, he must move down into the inner resources of his own soul and sign with a pen and ink of self-assertive manhood his own emancipation proclamation.

Don’t let anybody take your manhood. Be proud of our heritage…we don’t have anything to be ashamed of.

Somebody told a lie one day. They couched it in language. They made everything Black ugly and evil. Look in your dictionaries and see the synonyms of the word Black. It’s always something degrading and low and sinister. Look at the word White, it’s always something pure, high and clean. Well I want to get the language right tonight.

I want to get the language so right that everyone here will cry out: ‘Yes, I’m Black, I’m proud of it. I’m Black and beautiful!'" - Dr. King

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Images and caption reposted from @zebablay I am honestly so deeply depressed and disgusted by everything at the moment. But, a few thoughts on this day: Allyship should not be transactional. Genocide is not and never will be justifiable. And, there is something so deeply perverse about how Western imperial powers harass, surveil and ultimately kill freedom fighters/leaders like MLK only to sanitize and sloganize their messages, then suppress/weaponize their legacies in the name of genocide and empire. This country did not deserve Martin Luther King Jr. Did not. Enjoy your day off or whatever.

1. Coretta Scott King gazes into the eyes of Bernice King, then 5-years-old, at MLK’s funeral

2. Tweet by @berniceking

3. Excerpt from Nikki Giovanni’s “Reflections on April 4, 1968”

4. MLK on the scam that is settler colonialism

5-7. Excerpts from Michelle Alexander’s 2019 NYT op-ed “Time to Break the Silence on Palestine”

8. bell hooks on MLK

9. Mother and daughter, grieving

#HappyBirthdayDrKing

NO YOU ARE NOT OKAY

Bernice King, the daughter of Martin Luther King, is setting the record straight regarding her father’s stance on the Israel-Palestine conflict following a Twitter post made by comedian Amy Schumer.