In Her Father's Footsteps

Bernice King in the running to head SCLC

The youngest daughter of the late Dr. Martin Luther King is one of five being considered to head the civil rights organization famously helmed by her father, back in the day. You can find the details here.

If she is successful in being chosen, King will become the first woman to preside over the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. That is a good thing. We need more women to take charge of these organizations injecting new blood and a new way of thinking. Bernice King does represent in that respect.

However, the youngest daughter of Martin and Coretta Scott is also a fundamentalist preacher and a leader in the anti gay movement.

Her many homophobic stances are in direct conflict with the teachings and practices of both of her parents, who were always inclusive in practice and toward the end of their lives, in speech.

The blatant homophobic tendencies of the Black church are literally killing our people and our community.

Choosing the Reverend King to head the iconic SCLC would be a major step backward instead of forward into the 21st century. The Black church has failed to lead when it comes to the issues destroying our communities.

Rather than face the scourge that is AIDS or the violence that permeates our neighborhoods, the church has chosen to hide behind outdated thinking, wrapping itself in the irrelevance of the past, while wondering out loud why their congregations are shrinking.

It is time for all Black organizations to rejoin the fight for civil rights in the way the fight was defined by Martin and Malcolm and Fannie and Bayard and the others who go nameless...

It was a fight for the rights of all people....not just some people...

As long as one is bound..so, too, are the rest of us...bound and not free..

Reverend Bernice King would be a refreshing change, but she would be the wrong change for a struggling Black Community that desperately needs direction free of false platitudes ...