Continuing one of America’s most influential legacies, Dr. Bernice A. King has established herself as a formidable force for justice and reconciliation in her own right. As we mark Black History Month, JURIST Senior Editor Pitasanna Shanmugathas sits down with the youngest daughter of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.—a woman who was just five years old when her father’s assassination forever changed the course of American history.
Born in Atlanta in 1963 during the height of the civil rights movement, Dr. Bernice A. King has transformed personal tragedy into purpose. With dual credentials as both an ordained minister and a lawyer she embodies a unique blend of moral authority and legal acumen. Since her admission to the Georgia Bar in 1992, Dr. King has dedicated her life to extending her father’s unfinished work through leadership in nonviolence education, youth mentorship, and racial reconciliation.
Today, as CEO of The King Center—the living memorial established by her mother, Coretta Scott King — Dr. Bernice A. King stands as the guardian of a revolutionary legacy while adapting its principles to contemporary struggles.
In this candid conversation, Dr. King illuminates lesser-known dimensions of her family’s activism, revealing how her mother’s pacifist convictions predated and profoundly influenced her father’s public stance against the Vietnam War. With scholarly precision and personal insight, she confronts the deliberate misappropriation of her father’s words by political figures who invoke his dream while undermining its substance. As controversial voting laws proliferate across the US and conflicts abroad echo the militarism her father condemned, Dr. King offers a timely analysis of how Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s intersectional vision — targeting what he called “the three evils” of racism, poverty, and militarism — remains urgently relevant.
The interview concludes with a surprisingly vulnerable reflection on Dr. King’s own struggles with depression during law school, offering hard-won wisdom to today’s law students navigating similar challenges in an increasingly complex world.
This interview has been lightly edited for clarity and concision.
Pitasanna Shanmugathas: Before we discuss your father’s legacy and the current state of America, I’d like to hear your thoughts on the profound influence your mother had on Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Academic Michael Eric Dyson described your mother as “an earlier and more devoted pacifist than her husband.” Could you talk about Coretta Scott King’s early activism, the values she upheld, and the political impact she had on your father?
Dr. Rev. Bernice A. King: I want to clarify a common misconception — some may believe that my mother shaped my father’s activism, but he was already deeply rooted in a family of social justice advocates.
My father’s maternal grandfather was an activist and one of the first presidents of the NAACP in Atlanta. He also fought for the establishment of the first Black public high school, which my father later attended. My [paternal] grandfather, likewise, was an activist who worked for the equalization of teacher salaries, desegregation of elevators, and served on the board of directors for Citizens Trust Bank — the first Black-owned bank in Atlanta and the second in the nation.
My father was raised in this environment of activism. His time at Morehouse College further exposed him to influential Black leaders and the philosophy of Mahatma Gandhi, which he deepened in theology school. So, rather than my mother introducing him to activism, they were both already on similar paths.
Now, my mother didn’t enter the freedom struggle or pacifism through my father. She had early exposure to these ideas. She attended the Lincoln Normal School in Marion, Alabama, where Northern Quaker missionaries taught and mentored students. Around the age of 15 or 16, she was introduced to Mahatma Gandhi’s philosophy. Her exposure to Gandhi was deepened during her time at Antioch College, in Yellow Springs, Ohio, which she attended after the Lincoln School Choir led by one of the Missionary teachers toured the Midwest with a choir, visiting the Yellow Springs Ohio area. At Antioch, she encountered the teachings of Horace Mann, the founder of the college, who said, “Be ashamed to die until you’ve won victory for humanity.” This resonated deeply with my mother, as she grew up in a home that valued religion, service, hard work, and standing up for what’s right, despite the difficulties her family faced. My [maternal] grandfather was often stopped by white men at night, with guns pointed at his head, not knowing whether he’d come home. My mother learned to live with the fear of losing those she loved. These early experiences planted the seeds of activism in her.
By the time the civil rights movement began, she was already steeped in these values. During College, she was active in the NAACP and the Progressive Political Party and was a part of the peace movement, which took her across the nation and even abroad.
So, when my mother met my father, she was already an activist in her own right. She wasn’t an influence on him when she met him. She became his intellectual and spiritual equal, and they worked together as partners. In fact, I would say she was the most influential person in his life when it came to staying steadfast, because she refused to be afraid or self-centered. During the Montgomery Bus Boycott in 1956, she was the first to experience a direct threat to their lives when the home was bombed. Even when her father came to get her, she said, “Dad, I have to stay here with Martin.” Afterward in reflecting on that moment she realized and noted that, “I’ve been called to this movement as well, and I may lose my life.” She was a constant source of encouragement for my father reminding him that, “The movement needs you.” After the bombing he told my mom he didn’t know what he would have done without her. Throughout the movement she was always there, standing strong and courageous.
Her encouragement and influence extended to his stance on the Vietnam War. My father had spoken out against the war but had not made an official public statement until April 4, 1967. My mother repeatedly told him, “Martin, we need your moral authority and voice in the peace movement.” Because of her early involvement, she understood the stakes and continued to encourage him to take a formal stand. This gave him the strength to deliver his historic speech against the Vietnam War at Riverside Church on April 4, 1967, despite warnings from civil rights leaders who feared it would hurt their cause. Many of his closest allies distanced themselves from him after that speech, and he faced harsh criticism — what we might call cancel culture today. But he stood firm, and Coretta was a key reason for that.
Finally, while we rightfully celebrate Dr. King, the world knows him today because of Coretta Scott King. She was the architect of his legacy after his life was tragically taken.
Shanmugathas: What I find particularly impressive about your mother is that she was an outspoken critic of the Vietnam War as early as 1965. Even before that, in 1957, she co-founded the Committee for a Sane Nuclear Policy, advocating for the abolition of nuclear weapons — taking bold positions long before they were considered mainstream. In that sense, I was thinking she may have influenced your father, as she was already championing these causes before he took a public stance.
King: Yes, but as a leader, my father had a deep understanding of timing. He was highly attuned to when and where to engage. At that particular moment, he couldn’t actively take on the peace movement because of the immense work he was already doing in the civil rights movement. Leaders have to make critical decisions about where to focus their efforts, recognizing that they can’t be everywhere at once. Dividing his attention too much would have made it harder to create the impact he needed.
That said, he always understood the deep connections between militarism, poverty, and racism. He recognized these interrelated evils early on and addressed them systematically when the time was right. I just wanted to make that point.
Shanmugathas: Donald Trump and other right-wing figures have increasingly cited your father’s famous words from his I Have a Dream speech — his hope that his children “would not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.” They use this to argue against teaching critical race theory and to roll back policies designed to support vulnerable communities of color. For example, then-House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy asserted, “Critical race theory goes against everything that Martin Luther King Jr. taught us.” Dr. Bernice A. King, you’ve been vocal in criticizing the misrepresentation of your father’s words. Why is this invocation of his legacy problematic?
King: First and foremost, it’s simply wrong. It’s misinformation. They are misappropriating his words, stripping them of their full meaning and context. To truly understand what my father was saying, you have to read his entire speech, not just cherry-pick one line to fit a political agenda.
This is particularly concerning in today’s world, where people seem more impressionable than ever. Many take statements at face value without studying their origins or deeper meanings. We’re not engaging in the kind of thoughtful examination we should when it comes to figures like my father. Instead, people latch onto selective quotes, much like picking at a meal — taking a few bites while leaving most of the plate untouched.
The real danger is that misinformation, when repeated enough, starts to become accepted as truth. It reshapes the public’s understanding of history and allows people to claim they are fulfilling Dr. King’s dream while ignoring the very injustices he fought against. My father’s dream was never detached from reality — it was deeply rooted in the urgent need to address racial injustice. The first several minutes of his speech outline the harsh realities Black Americans faced, many of which still persist today and must be confronted.
What he was really saying is that if we do the work of dismantling systemic racism, then we can reach a place where people are judged by their character rather than their skin color. But that work remains unfinished, and using his words to justify inaction — or worse, to roll back progress — is a complete distortion of his message. That’s why this misrepresentation is so problematic.
Shanmugathas: People like Donald Trump refuse to acknowledge that your father recognized the deep, intersectional oppression Black Americans faced. He spoke about how Black people were the only group brought to America involuntarily as slaves, stripped of their rights, and then denied the land and true emancipation they were promised. Given the economic, political, and social oppression Black Americans endured, your father would not have opposed affirmative action. In fact, his writings and speeches make it clear that he believed in policies aimed at correcting historical injustices.
King: Yeah, my father wrote extensively about this. In his book Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community? he writes extensively about the harrowing and unique experience of Black enslavement in America — how Black people were stripped of everything, left with nothing but themselves. In that book he makes it clear that if a society has harmed a group of people for 400 years, then justice demands action to repair that harm. To him, justice at its best was love correcting everything that stands against love.
Affirmative action and similar policies were never about exclusion, discrimination, or diminishing others. They were about addressing the real damage inflicted upon a group that did not come here by choice. Many immigrant groups chose to come and build a life in America, but Black Americans — like our Native brothers and sisters, whose oppression is another critical discussion — were forcibly displaced, exploited, and denied opportunities for centuries.
There is a lot of grassroots work needed to counter the distorted narrative being pushed today. Correcting the record is essential, because misrepresenting my father’s message only deepens the very inequalities he fought to eliminate.
Shanmugathas: Across America, numerous states have passed laws restricting access to the ballot box, raising concerns that your father’s legacy in advancing the Voting Rights Act is being eroded. How do you view these developments, and what can be done to protect voting rights today?
King: I really don’t know what the answer to that is but one thing I do know for sure is that protecting democracy starts with recognizing the essential role of voting. We saw in the last election how important it is to show up and participate. Even if you don’t feel represented by the candidates on the ballot, you can still write someone in. When people disengage from voting, it’s like a muscle that atrophies — democracy loses its strength and effectiveness.
The first step is helping people understand that refusing to vote is not a valid form of protest. In fact, it’s the worst kind because it’s essentially a protest against democracy itself.
Beyond that, I’m still exploring solutions. I’ve often questioned whether the right to vote is truly protected in our Constitution. Even though I’ve studied law, I’m not entirely sure that voting, as we understand it, is fully constitutionalized. That’s something we need to examine — how do we ensure that voting is a fundamental, undeniable right?
I remember asking my mother why voting rights legislation had to be renewed so frequently. Every 15 or 25 years, we have to sign something back into law, and I wondered — why? Why do we have to extend something that should be permanently guaranteed? That question still troubles me.
Addressing this issue will require extensive and difficult work, but it must be done. Just as our ancestors held pre-constitutional conventions to lay the groundwork for change, we may need to take similar action in this era to secure voting rights for future generations.
Shanmugathas: On April 4, 1967, in his speech Beyond Vietnam, your father condemned the United States as, I quote, “the greatest purveyor of violence in the world.” In that speech your father spoke about the billions America was spending on bombs to kill Vietnamese people while black Americans die in disproportionate numbers and poverty rises in America’s ghettos.
Today, one of the most pressing issues for peace advocates in America and the world is Israel’s assault on Gaza since October 7th, with the United States providing billions in military support to Israel. Israel has frequently invoked your father as a strong supporter of the state, despite his opposition to Israel’s occupation of Gaza and the West Bank after the Six-Day War in 1967, which even led him to cancel a planned visit to Israel. In an interview with ABC News, on June 18, 1967, your father said, “I think for the ultimate peace and security of the situation it will probably be necessary for Israel to give up this conquered territory [West Bank and the Gaza Strip] because to hold on to it will only exacerbate the tensions and deepen the bitterness of the Arabs.” And it’s interesting how prophetic that statement of his has become. Given your father’s unwavering commitment to justice and human rights, how do you think he would respond to the suffering of Palestinians under the U.S.-backed Israeli occupation? And what would he urge conscientious Americans to do to stop it?
King: I hesitate to say exactly what my father would or wouldn’t do today — 57 years after his death — because the world has changed in so many ways. However, what I do know is that my father was not just a human rights advocate; he deeply loved humanity. He understood and taught that all life is interconnected, interrelated, and interdependent.
The real issue we face is that too many people, especially those in positions of power, have yet to embrace this fundamental truth. Until leaders truly honor and uphold the dignity, worth, and value of every human being, we will continue to see displacement, exploitation, and destruction of life. The cycle will not stop until we, as a global society, commit to recognizing and respecting the sacredness of human existence.
My father studied personalism, which teaches that there is something inherently sacred about the human personality. That belief — that every person is worthy of dignity and respect — was central to his philosophy. Until we collectively understand and internalize this principle, violence, oppression, and exploitation will persist.
To illustrate this in a simple way, I often recall a scene from Rise of the Planet of the Apes. The lead character, Caesar, is confronted with another ape who is violent and out of control. The group wants to destroy him, but Caesar stops them and says, “Don’t kill apes.” It struck me deeply. I turned to the person I was watching with and said, What if that mindset existed among all humans? If every person truly embraced the sanctity of life, would we still rob and kill? Would we drop bombs on entire communities? Would we steal land from people who have cultivated it for generations? Would we enslave others or brutalize them during an arrest? Would we forcibly remove someone from their home without allowing them to say goodbye to their pregnant wife? The answer is no. We wouldn’t, because we would honor, respect, and uphold the dignity of every human being.
Until we reach that level of collective consciousness — until people in positions of leadership truly grasp this fundamental truth — I don’t believe we will see lasting change.
Shanmugathas: JURIST is a law-student led legal news publication with law-student writers from all over the world in places like the United States, Canada, Africa, Asia, Europe reporting on abuses of the rule of law. Dr. Bernice A. King you are also a lawyer, and you have been publicly open about your depression and the mental health struggles that you faced, even having contemplated suicide, during your time as a law student. You would go on to graduate with a Juris Doctor from Emory University and become a member of the Georgia bar. What advice would you give to law students here at JURIST that might be facing similar personal battles during their time at law school?
King: Well, I think the first thing I would say is to pace yourself. Law school is very competitive, and you need to establish your own timetable. Everything doesn’t have to happen according to the norm of “I go to law school, and I’ve got to finish in three years.” Especially now, law students are living in a much more stressful world than when I was in law school. So, when you combine that with the stress of law school, it’s really important to be realistic about your capacity. Students today are required to do much more than just be students.
I personally dealt with emotional challenges during my time in law school, including some significant losses that impacted my ability to focus and perform. I ended up on academic probation a couple of times, and it just became overwhelming. I didn’t realize at the time that I probably should have gone to counseling to work through those emotional struggles. I also had a professor who seemed to target me and another Black student, and I felt it was racist. It became so much for me to handle that I ended up withdrawing from all of my classes at the end of the semester because I just didn’t have the emotional strength to finish or take the exams. It was too much to concentrate on.
I did finish on time, but I needed to remove that pressure from myself. So, pacing yourself is key. Stay focused on your goal but recognize that you don’t have to follow the traditional path. And just because the environment is competitive, that doesn’t mean you have to be. I was in both law school and theology school at the same time, and the environment in theology school was much more community-oriented and supportive. Law school can be more isolating, and there’s a lot of pressure to outdo the person next to you. We have to rethink competition in these environments and ask ourselves whether it’s really necessary to compete in certain ways.
I’ve said to corporate leaders before, “Why should a nonprofit that’s doing important work to uplift certain communities have to compete for your dollars?” It’s like saying, “I can’t go to Coke because Pepsi is your competitor.” That’s not where we should be competing, and it’s not right. Similarly, in law school, we need to rethink what we’re competing for and where that competition is truly beneficial.
You should take some time for yourself. Take a breath. Stay focused on your timetable and understand that you can get through it. My mother, for example, spent six years at Antioch College, something I didn’t even know until after she passed. I always thought she finished in four years yet look at the impact she had on the world. You don’t have to follow the conventional path to achieve success.
Shanmugathas: Thank you so much Dr. King for speaking with JURIST.
King: Thank you.
