Dr. Bernice A. King Amazed By New Info She Uncovered About Her Parents

I ask every guest who appears on this show since it's called Jamal Hill is unbothered um when did you become unbothered unbothered when you explain what you mean by unbothered because that almost seems like nothing no it doesn't mean you don't care right all right unbothered is more where um you know you sort of reach a point where you're not consumed or concerned with what other people think about who you are how you navigate the world that to me is being unbothered okay I wouldn't say I'm 100% there um it's it's an evolution uh for me because obviously I'm I'm bombarded with these in inevitable comparisons to my parents and I'm you know I'm I'm working through all of that that process um but I would say I'm probably 80 85% there um what I can say is that the way that I'm wired whatever it is I feel um and I feel deeply um I'm if if people don't understand it will sometimes bother me that they don't understand but I don't get stuck there let me let me just say it that way um because I am the kind I'm very sensitive you even though I'm strong I'm very sensitive and I know we live in a our world is not black and white you know there a lot of Grace to me um there are some things that I obviously have matured to understand and there's some things that all of us of conscience realize should be the case but as you get older you you you begin to um um grasp that life is very comp complicated um sometimes convoluted and that there's certain realities that are going to be present in any generation of time there's always going to be evil forces um so you can't have this superficial optimism you know that we can get to this kind of Utopia but we can get to a place where we can create the kind of society and world where we can work through differences conflicts Etc now I am more uh cautiously optimistic that way um but I do realize again there's so many people in the world some people just they'll they'll never uh get to a place where uh they are quote unquote fulfilled within themselves and not making hell for everybody else there just going to be some people like that unfortunately but I can't let it Al to me now I heard that um but do do you think we give I often go back and forth with this like do we give too much energy and oxygen to what is just a very loud minority yes yes yes yes we don't give oxygen to the right things the right voices I mean soon as you know some dissension some divisiveness some whatever comes up that just tends to catch on and and it's like a wildfire um and everything else is kind of you know pushed to the side little muted Etc I do believe that I always said when President Trump was in the office it's one thing to reveal you know what he was doing how he was doing it but we kept pounding pounding pounding giving him more air giving him more otion giving it more attention you know giving it more of a platform and that's why honestly there's so much that happens in the social media world I can't get in a back and forth over and over with people who misappropriate my father's um words and his work there are sometimes that I have to address it but I'm not going to address it and keep going back and forth because guess what that only gives that person a greater platform you often look and say how many followers do do they have you know what I'm saying how many friends do they have do I want to increase that so you have to think about that critically because the more you do that you're not blowing up that platform so it's a delicate balance to know when you have to because you don't want to let it sit there but if it's just a few people few you know retweets or whatever it's like let that down on the vine well um I'm I'm sure you thought this was is why you did it but uh you know his most recent birthday I mean you had to or observance um you I thought what you said to to Senator Josh Howley was entirely appropriate because he had put out a video that was completely misappropriating who your father was what he stood for what your family I should say stood for and so for you to um acknowledge and correct him on on social media because I think the gist of the video was that that somehow uh Dr King would have been against uh critical RAC and I was like wait what yeah and it was entirely disingenuous and I know that people do that a lot but it has got to be even more damaging when you see people in that position and Authority do that when it comes to your father's work yeah but you know being a Christian people misappropriate the Bible they've been doing it for centuries and so I'm a minister of the Gospel so I've been trained um in in Ministry and because I have that early training and knowledge you know my father's no greater than Jesus Christ certainly God no greater than God um or not even equal to them and so if they did that to God they do that to the Bible they you know it's that's why I said I just I have to balance it all because even though people have done that with Jesus God Etc there's still Christianity is still a a very humongous religion and over time I believe truth as Daddy said truth Christ Earth will rise again and in the end these are words he said um um unarm unarmed truth and unconditional uh love will win in the end and so I have to stick with that and and the way I balance it is what you said you know you kind of hit it and you don't dwell there you know you do just enough because if you dwell there again what happens is that person's platform just does this this this this this and it's at my you know expense and I'm I'm not going to do that so yes it was appropriate to do it and say it but not go you know back and forth and back and forth and back and forth in a lightning rod and then all of a sudden he's got two million three million four million five million 10 million followers it's like no no no no hit it and then put the little fire out and keep moving and let the truth sit there because I tell people all the time I said this to an audience and it's probably hard to understand and I don't even know how to break it all the way down but I said truth doesn't need help all you need to do is put it out there and when you put it out there the it the more people they catch on and they put it out there that's all you have to do I mean it is what it is I mean truth is just truth yeah there'll be you know other narratives or whatever but I've seen just living as long as I've lived what daddy said the truth question Earth will rise again I've i' I've seen like for instance when we were in Vietnam you know at the time everybody you know there was there's a battle in our country about you know the war and us being in Vietnam it was finally acknowledged you know in the in the later 70s that that was a mistake the truth of what my father was saying you know was was revealed uh and so that's why yes you put the truth out there and you keep going you don't have to B banter with the person just keep speaking the truth because I think one one one of the things we do too often is we get stuck on the person and that's why you know in nonviolence we teach people to stay focused on the issue we're not trying to defeat the person you know we're trying to establish the truth yeah and and and and that or we're trying to you know um defeat the Injustice uh not not the person because people have to catch up you know they got so much stuff in them that that has to be purged that has to be that you know and sometimes people will never Purge you know they're things they have to be exposed to and learn um you know this again it's it's not as cut and dry cut and dry as we would like it to be um and so you know and I've been in all kind of processes I remember I used to be I used to consider myself uh So Pro black that everything I looked at was through the lens of racism everything literally that's the way I process life if anything happened it was like that's racism but I don't do that anymore so how do you look uh through you know what's your lens what would you say how would you describe it now well I mean there various ways I mean some of it is people are not exposed they they're ignorant um you know if you grow up insulated in a world and that's all you you know and suddenly you come into contact with somebody who shs the light and say Hey you know there's some truth over here or there's some myth here that you don't quite understand and get then they're going to remain like that and it's going to be hard as people get older that's why we have to do things starting at the youngest age and that's that's why there's this whole attack now on the the young age you know because people know that if they get it at that age you know this that we've been dealing with forever we wouldn't be dealing with and so I I first approach people by saying okay that person is ignorant or you know they may be racist and they can't shake it my attitude is whatever influence that I can have whatever seed I can seow that's what I'm going to do cuz I'm not responsible for somebody's change but I am responsible for leaving them with what is true but truth sometimes oh this is so hard to to explain you know when my father developed his philosophy of nonviolence he he he he studied a man by the name of Hegel and and and Hegel um talked about uh the the the the tension the the the T thesis and the antithesis and the the tension that exist uh between two two thoughts and what my father learned by this is that you have this thesis you have this antithesis and then you have the synthesis of all of that which means that they threads of Truth in in every position my father was able to find threads of Truth in things that he mostly disagree with and you get to this higher truth and so the way I look at it is that my job is to elevate people to a place where I can hear what they're saying and try to find if there's any thread of Truth to what they might be saying and is if I can I take that thread of Truth and then match it with my thread of Truth now somebody may say my thread of Truth 70% there is 5% that doesn't matter the point is there's a higher truth that we have to get to and so you know again I try to categorize things as ignorant some things as racist depending on the context and the history of the person you know because you do have to study that background to see you know what this person's been exposed to who they've been what has been their platform what has been their consistency and that that's the information gathering I think if somebody says something we immediately think racist but it might not be racist well um you know is the process you're describing is is finding common ground and I think that's it feels like that's harder to do these days because our it's very hard our politics are very extreme um there's a lot of outrage a lot of anger period so what as somebody who is in non-violent work who is also um you know a minister you know how much more challenging it is that for you in this time considering the work that you do actually it's less challenging for me in this time than it was before strangely enough uh and some of that I did not expect you to say that it is it is it it you know because I'm a different person I've moved I shift and I see the world differently I see people I see humankind differently I know there's good in the worst of us and bad in the best of us um and and so I have grown to a place and I'm still growing I'm not I'm not going to say I'm 100% there I would say I'm probably 65 to 70% there I've gotten to a place where I can shut down my opinion enough to listen because again my goal is not to prove you wrong or to put you down or to shame you my goal is to figure out how I Elevate you and so I have to listen long enough to see what this is where this is coming from because all of this stuff comes from somewhere whether it's ignorance upbringing anger you know Etc and what kind of revealed this even more to me there was a protest during all of the situation after George Floyd and there was an individual that was a part of one of the white supremacist groups and they ended up in a in in an area where there were you know some of the people under the banner of black lives matter and that person said to that white supremacist person why do you hate me and you know what the P the the guy said I don't know there's so much trauma in this nation all the way around some greater than other but nonetheless is trauma and I learned by uh inviting some of the former Clans members former neo-nazis former skin heads that some of the same reason they end up in those extreme places is the same reason our black kids end up in gangs they're looking for a place to belong because they come from such Brokenness um and they end up in these world and they don't they're just doing it out of their own whole and need and void and then they become old PE older people adults and they keep doing it but they started as you know 15 year old 14 year old whatever 13 and it's like they don't even know they're just doing it it's just now it's second nature but they're doing it out of that pain in their own life and they're causing much pain in other people's lives um and the problem is with all of this that's one layer that we have to contend it but the real layer are the people who are Tred who are keeping the systems and structures in place that keep us you know some of the whites that are in communities that have some of the same challenges that we have in terms of economics keep us like this so that their system and structure that they have can stay in place and it can continue to underg their own personal economy so that's what the issue is that we have to begin to really look at and sometimes we get caught on this this lowlevel fighting you know with folks these these these just they just straight up hurting they they're ignorant they they they they stuff is so embedded in them and they don't even know they're being used they don't yeah guess we're all being exploited um yeah I mean you're your father obviously he did a lot of work around uniting people at a certain economic level with the poor people campaign party and because he understood that this is an issue of of Economics um because you have people they want the fight to take place at that level so that we will take as they say so you will not know who's minding the store all right exactly because we're too busy fighting over uh the goods um you know I think it was yesterday yesterday um would have been your mother's 95th birthday so how did you commemorate her birthday so we had a special um Beloved Community talks um um yesterday evening with some incredible women uh two of whom knew my mother uh personally uh Janea Cole Dr Janea Cole um a Woman by the name of darus krenshaw who was just 12 years old when the Montgomery uh movement started and um you know they sh they shared some very powerful stories testimony and gave some you know some important Insight um and then I was with on my side of the panel because it was um moderated by Monica Pearson who for us growing up was Monica Kaufman uh here in Atlanta uh it was me uh my my sister Mika mallerie and jota Edy um and you know we really uh had a conversation about how you know my mother has influenced us but also the work of just black women in this in this Society the power of of black women and the things that you know we can do I think um in a way that no other group can do uh and so that was one of the ways that that I celebrated her yesterday is to really bring together women who knew and then women who've been inspired or influenced by her um and uh that was it I went I actually went to the hair salon yesterday too well how often um do you run into I'm sure this has happened consistently through your life but how often are you in conversation with people who knew your mother uh who tell you things about her that maybe you didn't know I've obviously heard different stories from people that I wouldn't know but because um I learned my mother's character and nature it never surprises me like whoa it's never been any of that when they share the story but if it's like okay well I I didn't know that um so that may happened periodically um I'm you know I'm always collecting you know stories about her so yeah I I would just say it would be periodically and and I was trying to remember if there was anything in specifically like that and I can't recall it right now but if it if it hits me at some point I'll say it well it was a book I read this book a few years ago about your mom oh yeah yeah and um now that book I helped to to work with the um uh the writer right the writer one of our friends I think Barber Reynolds rers yeah right and so my mother interviewed with Bob Reynolds uh they were working on this book and things didn't work out at that time in like around 2000 uh so she had you know numerous convers conversations with my mother so I got an opportunity to help Barbara complete the book and when we were going through it now now there were a lot of stuff I did not know that you know Barbara had revealed from her conversations with my mother that were in the book and that was like wow I didn't know that I mean that just totally shocked me now I'll tell you what I didn't know that I discovered after her death my mother attended anach College still around in Yellow Springs Ohio liberal arts college I did not know that my mother did not graduate in the fouryear six-year cycle that people you know when they go to college they graduated well my mother talked about Antioch you know in her lifetime you know it just never came out that her her matriculation was in that you know successive time per getting her degree I discovered after her death and when my sister pass pass because my sister was over her State and then I was the person that took over her state after my sister suddenly passed I discovered in a box you know her degree and I looked at and I said I think it said 67 196 what 1967 what is what is this story here so I had to go on a search cuz I was puzzled and shocked I thought my mother started school 4 40 4445 and she she finished four actually I thought she finished four years later I then also discovered it was six years that she matriculated there and she just left and went to New England Conservatory music my logic was she graduated from the Antioch and immediately went to New England no she finished Antioch after six years which I didn't know it was even six and then I had to ask her sister who was still living after she died what was that about and she didn't really want to talk in detail about it because there were some things that happened when my mother was in college where she had to stand up for herself and I don't think the administrators appreciated it at the time even though this is a Liber arts college they a little bit more open um my mother wanted to do her student teaching at the Yellow Springs uh in the Yellow Springs School District but it was still segregated and she was upset about that so she petitioned them she then went to the president of the college and the president college would not stand up for and and and she spoke out about it and I think my aunt was feeling even though she didn't tell me this this is what I was sensing just by certain gestures and little bit that she was saying that you know they mistreated ketta uh or Corey as she would call her they they mistreated her um because it's like retaliatory well I then discovered from a young lady who now works for us at the King Center as our chief research education and programs officer who who's done extensive research on my mother um that my mother didn't pass this specific test at Antioch now the test probably was a more subjective uh um um grading because it was essay oriented so you know how that goes right um and that may be what my aunt's saying that you you know they just didn't want to pass her even though she took it but the test happened to be in the area it wasn't directly these words but this is what it was for that time in the area of social change so here you have this woman in the midst of this this movement that is changing Society you know and so I guess they said but you know we better give her her degree cuz we're not going to look this is going to come back to home this is going to historically look terrible exactly yeah you said something interesting during the interview that in in many ways your your mother was ahead of your father um in what ways did you mean that you know um they both were strategist in different ways but I think he was he was so into the movement as the leader he didn't have enough time to really step back and understand what needed to happen to ensure future Generations um would benefit from what they were doing and so she had this insight and foresight to see so far off and and it started early on before the movement even got really going she was already thinking something historical is happening and we need to capture this so when he left to go make his speech with the mam Improvement Association he was preparing to make a speech as the president that night because that's when the organization was started and he was nominated to be president and this was the after the full day of the first day of the boycott she told someone because she had just delivered my sister two weeks prior or uh yeah and she told someone a birth my sister she told someone take this tape recorder the only reason we have that speech in those words today is because she insisted that that be recorded so she was always like we this we're in the midst of something she knew it before him that's what I'm saying so in many and then the Vietnam War she was already a peace activist before they got married and you know was traveling once they got married she went to International Peace conferences um switching and all over the place and really encouraged him to lend his voice to their movement she said Martin you know the peace movement needs your moral Authority and your moral voice and you know I I we I would I would hope you would you know lend your voice and you know yes there were other people talking to them about it but I think because she was already there for years before they got married and then by the time 67 6667 got here she was talking more about it uh it and and she was the solid single steady voice and presence in that regard that gave him the strength to stand because he was critiqued from every you talking about cancel culture he was cancelled by all his colleagues in the civil rights movement and this was public you know the Johnson Administration you know started shifting newspapers I mean all of that but my mother again is the one who was saying that and then years later she sees Henry Kissinger after that he's assassinated and he pulls her to the side because I think he was I forget what role he was in at the I don't know if he was secet State then he said Mrs King you all were right about Vietnam so she just you know if you look at if you you you read the book I tell people that book is a is a manual of how to do a lot of stuff in in leadership and strategy Etc she was very um strategic in how she got my father father's reputation and work recognized in the world um that 54 years later we're still contending with it looking at it globally not just in our society not just in the black community but globally um when I went to the Nobel museum for an exhibit that uh we uh worked on uh with a curator um about my Father which is the most comprehensive exhibit on his life and influence from before he was born to how you know his work impacted movements today they revealed to me that out of all of their Nobel LS whether you talking about chemistry medicine literature Etc Dr King is the most researched and so not just the most researched Peace Prize laurat but all categories and and I they said over 50% of the people who come to our website on a daily basis are looking for something about Martin Luther King well the other interesting thing about it's a lot of interesting things but one of the things that also struck out to me was um in uh the book uh that is done about your mother is that it's it's a good blueprint as you mentioned about strategy but it also is it also reminds you that even within movements there's conflicts and tensions and disagreements and looking today at how some how the current movement has not only been shaped obviously it has a lot to do with how um you know your parents shape the move movement but I look at how some of the conflict and tension is is is handled and I I think about her book often because I'm like man people don't know that this is always been the case with so you can't freak out when you see it and um it feels like today because of social media because these tensions are given so much more amplification PA yeah yeah that people think that that is a signal that things aren't working when I'm like no that this is generally how it's how it's been however I did come across something interesting you said regarding today's movement you said what you thought it lack today was strategy uh what did you mean by that well it seems to me that there's a lot of effort on um bringing attention and awareness to what's happening and not as much energy on what is the strategy to get to the end uh goal um or what even the end goal is because you know a lot of people have different thoughts about you know what we ought to be working towards and the the how you know how should it look whether you take whether you're talking about um dealing with the the issue around um reimagining policing defund I mean it's just all this conflict and tension around what is it going to ultimately be that we're trying to get to um and we there has to be a a critical mass of people who agree on that because otherwise you work against yourself and I think the beauty of what my father LED he was able to keep a critical mass of people together not that everybody was with him we know that but he had a a critical mass of people who could agree on the ultimate goal and even the means to get there the means meaning making sure that we keep our posture of nonviolence in place as we move toward it doesn't mean you're not going to have tension not you're not going to confront stuff uh but it means you're going to practice you know the principles uh and follow the steps of nonviolence um and that somebody is going to kind of you know be the referee of that from from daddy and his Camp's point of view because you know even at that time people didn't 100% ascribed to it at the level that my father did he described to it as a way of life but you know he knew how to work with people who saw it tactically you know as a tactic to be utilized in this moment they may have not had the whole piece and so he worked with that and he had people on his team who were able to manage all of that so you know I think coming together and deciding what is that ultimate thing and outcome we're trying to achieve and putting together a stepbystep plan plan that has to be altered tweak because you you you come against different resistances as you go along um I think that's what that hard work seems to be to me to be missing now there are pockets of people you know who have entities and organizations like color of change Etc that are doing some work like that but what's happening is everybody's doing a lot of work but what I don't see is the Nehemiah effect in the Bible how NE IAH was able to coordinate and connect the dots so that the energy of what they were doing to rebuild the walls of Jew Jerusalem you know was flowing together so even sometimes I was I was reading um something that Tama was gonna I mentioned this morning and I can't remember what it was she was going to talk about um Megan this Stallion and and and I I didn't read about it so I didn't I didn't get all the details but apparently when she when she shot at or something I can't she was shot in the foot um by yeah she was shot in the foot by by man who you know was allegedly I think they were dating yeah that was something he's also a a Hip-Hop star yeah that was something but the other issue was about the young lady in Russia and you know apparently there's some people working behind the scenes with and and and you know Tama was addressing that and her her point was you know people understanding the importance of you know the tension in the streets and what I keep thinking about is how do we connect the the activists at heart with the more uh people who tend to work internally because they're all working but they're not coordinated and connected and I think that's why the the the rate and the level of change is not the level that where it needs to be um and that was the thing daddy worked with Hosea the agitator you know they it was part of the strategy in fact you know I'm meeting with Johnson as we saw in Selma but I'm also gonna be a part because daddy could do kind of go in and out of all of that you know some people are straight activists and they can't do the negotiate and they shouldn't because they don't have the temperament for it and then there's some people negotiate they just don't have the strength of you know of of character or just the the courage to be in the activist field but all need to be talking each other and coordinating the plan of action so that it complement each other and I think that's what seems to be missing uh today and I don't know how you connected because it's in a world where everybody is important and got followers and you know audiences and all that is it's hard for us to in the church World they call it submit to one another but it's hard for us to you know coordinate and and be humble enough to know where to yield in this area to somebody and then they may yield to me in this area it's just so difficult and it's frustrating to me I'm going to tell you as one who is of it but not in it that way it's very frustrating because I believe that part of my calling is to help with that and I I haven't figured out how to do it yet so I think one of the reasons um there is that fractured sense in the movement uh currently is that you know obviously when it was your dad's time that time the movement started out of the black church for the most part today is not like that that it's starting in other places and if anything it feels like the black church part of it has been left behind as a minister you know who's in this world you know how have you seen uh you know the Christian Faith Christian pastors um handle it or or not handle being or feeling connected to the movement that's happening now because it definitely feels like this is just my perception it feels like there is a disconnect there so let's clarify one thing there's the institutional black church and then their black pastors and what I mean by that is there have been black pastors a part of different you know movements that have been happening across the country we know it they show up they they've been there um on the front line there was some there in Ferguson when we went down to Ferguson um um and and so I wouldn't say that there's an absence I think it's the fragmentation that we experiencing there is not has not been um a collective Force out of the black church that has been tied and connected to what's happening now there are some right now working together more but it seems that there's still the disconnect you're talking about it's like like here in Atlanta there is a group of strong faith leaders that's working around the voting issue um just from my observation I'm not sure how tied and connected it has been to some of that younger generation but yet what the efforts that everybody's doing is toward the same end which is to make sure that people um are registered to vote to make sure that people understand the importance of voting and then bringing attention to what's happening with the lack of the federal Protections in place around voting and trying to put you know contined pressure there uh so that they are P pastors and a collective working together but again um I just have not seen doesn't mean it's not happening I just not have seen the connection so how do we deal with the fragmentation is is really the the the question um when so many historically um it's it's kind of like um the story where when Jesus is parents went to to I think it's like a a census registration and when they were leaving they traveled a whole Day's Journey and didn't know they had left Jesus behind and so they had to travel all the way back to go find him that's when they found him in the temple and he said you don't you know I should be about my father's business that's something that needs to be unpacked because that seems to be what has happened is that the the the collective black church and the collective doesn't mean every single part but the a strong force of of the black Church community kind of got into its own little world and became self-contained you know in in the religion of it all um and never kept connected with with the culture now it shouldn't follow the culture but it it it it got disconnected from the culture I remember there was a rapper called um God what was his name La snow uh here in Atlanta years ago he came to visit me and a pastor that I was working with I was a assistant pastor and he was just sharing with us you know the church just does not welcome us you know we wanted to you know do this whole rapping thing and so we went out and left you know and so we didn't know how to embrace what was happening and more importantly how to embrace it in a way so that it could it maintain positivity as opposed to destructiveness uh and so that's where this all started the rift this was right around the the '90s and so it's just and that's why it's like hey you know nothing has progressed since then we're sick and tired of this generation and you know we we just G we gonna do what we do because y'all y'all clueless the um the legacy of of of your family is is so enormous um was it ever a struggle for you to embrace it you gonna be a king regardless I me I get that I'm going be one all the time yeah I mean I tried first of all I I ran from my Ministry calling for eight eight years because of that because I was like look I I want to be Bernice I don't know what this means by me preaching because I had to work all that out with being a woman and not seeing a lot of women and certainly not somebody so young uh preaching in in my in our Baptist uh tradition uh although my grandfather was pretty Progressive because he had one woman who was licensed to preach um in the congregation but it was like I need my own identity um and then I didn't want to stud because I was called as I got a little bit older and understand okay I'm probably GNA have to yield to this because it's not going away um I'm not going to even delve into my daddy I'm not going to study I'm not going to study I'm not going to listen to him uhuh cuz I want I want to be me Bernie I don't I whatever he did and how he did it that's what he did let me find out what I want to do and how I want to do it on my own you know track so you know it wasn't until I was in my 30s where other than in theology school I had to take one course about it it wasn't really until the I was in my 30s that I started opening up to reading and listening uh and the irony of it is you know people will tell you sound like your father my mother even told me at my trial summon when I was 25 she said do you remember listening to him I said no she do you remember watching him I said no she said cuz you got gestures like him I I don't know but um and then um to be honest until my mother left this Earth I was hiding out I was peing out you know I do some things like had you you you you got it you know you know I'll show up when I need to whatever but once she left I realized one I had to grow up rapidly two I had to step into the space to be a part of carrying this Legacy forward at that time my sister was still around as one of the four um and started taking it a little bit more seriously and embracing it and then it still wasn't quite easy it really wasn't until I got into the leadership at the King Center that I finally resigned into that role and um you know I recognized that I finally settled in and said you know what that word that that saying that your mother uh would would would repeat all the time you don't have to be your daddy you don't have to be me but just be your best self it now makes sense because you know what I don't have to try to carve out this big enormous Legacy for for Bernie cuz my parents did it cuz guess what bernes they left the Legacy and somebody's got to carry it forward because otherwise it just dies on the vine and you're it so when people ask me now what is your legacy I tell them look I happen to be blessed with generations of social activists I'm continuing in that tradition and in that vein because my great-grandfather my grandfather my father my mom you know they were all social activist and humanitarians um human rights leaders uh and I'm trying to make sure what my father in particular and my mother Left Behind is continue because they intended for it to get to a certain place so I got to add my bit to this and my responsibility is just to figure out what is my part in carrying this forward instead of trying to figure out you know what's what's Bernice's Legacy like separate and apart it can't be like you said I'm always always I'm always going to be their child and that this what they gave to this world is so important to this world and and and you know it had a it's a lot left to be desired related to it so I'm honor to now be just a part of you know advancing the Legacy I signed things now that says the dream lives the Legacy continues because that's you know that's that's my responsibility continue this Legacy oh well I know I got to get get you out of here in a couple minutes but I'm going to end it um with a game that I play with every guest on here now you get it easy oh my God you get it easy because uh because of time you're only gonna get one question so it's a game that I play with all my guests called this or that I give you two choices you pick one this is always where the controversy happens okay so we'll end it here here's the two choices you got to pick one greens or mac and cheese greens that's see you handled that like a pro now don't let me find out you can make some mean greens you make some now no I can't you know I know how to cook I never had time to cook but um the only reason I chose it is because I have to be I have to manage the dairy intake but trust me if I didn't have to do that it would be hands down not not it has to be the right kind of macaroni cheese everybody can't make macaroni cheese right but I've had in my life time I've had some bad macaroni and cheese and when it's bad it is a disaster but can I tell you something the best macaroni and cheese that I ever had a white woman from Memphis Tennessee made it and she was a member of um Hilbert Patterson's Church Church of God in Christ oh wow I was like oh Lord we going to this lady's house we going to eat before we go cuz we don't she you know she offer the cook and everything we were scared got there she laid us out on this picnic table girl everything she cooked I kid you not it was so good it was first time I ever had fried green tomatoes wow I love fried green tomatoes those are so good you you would thought it was your Grandmama from um um from uh what's the name of that area in Mississippi is itous or something Mississippi down in Mississippi you would cuz she put her fo in those that food the greens the macaroni and cheese what else I mean the the yams oh my God that's the best macaroni cheese ever had well you know what I consider that to be racial progress that's how you that's that's the Common Ground that's the thread that we can all come in if we have good mac and cheese a lot of the world's problems will be solved immediately or greens in your case well um Dr Beres King thank you so much for joining me and spending your time with me and uh so many people appreciate not just the work of your parents and your family but of you specifically so thank you for being a voice and for your continued uh commitment um uh to nonviolence which is really quite extraordinary look I God some days I have to just say God knows my heart just leave it at that but you know I would love you to go through our online nonv 365 online experience I I really would so I'm inviting you to do that inviting your listen inviting your listeners it'll revolutionize your heart and your life and you know at the end of the day violence will never solve a thing it feels good because I've been to that place at the end it's like yes that energy that adrenaline gets to you know rushing through you but it's like what did I just accomplish what you know I don't I don't need the violence part of it because I don't want to get sued but some days but even verbally but even feels good I just got to stop cussing people out that's all yeah that's what I'm saying if you if you go through this it'll revolutionize you internally and um it doesn't mean you'll perfect it but you'll you'll have something to check you in a way that's never checked you before all right that's a word I will accept that invitation and I'll let you know when I go through it okay all right thank you Dr King appreciate so much

Channel: Jemele Hill

Views: 59,271

Keywords: Jemele, Jemele Hill, Jemele Hill is Unbothered, Jemele Hill Podcast, Podcast, Spotify, Jemele Hill Interview, Dr Bernice A King, MLK, MLK Jr, Martin Luther King Jr, Coretta Scott King

Id: 1d7Ds02M3qI

Length: 52min 4sec (3124 seconds)

Published: Mon Jan 15 2024