Bernice King

Bernice Albertine King (born March 28, 1963) is an American minister and the youngest child of civil rights leaders Martin Luther King Jr. and Coretta Scott King. She was five years old when her father was assassinated. In her adolescence, King chose to work towards becoming a minister after having a breakdown from watching a documentary about her father. King was 17 when she was invited to speak at the United Nations. Twenty years after her father was assassinated, she preached her trial sermon. Inspired by her parents' activism, she was arrested multiple times during her early adulthood. Her mother suffered a stroke in 2005 and, after she died the following year, King delivered the eulogy at her funeral. A turning point in her life, King experienced conflict within her family when her sister Yolanda and brother Dexter supported the sale of the King Center. After her sister died in 2007, she delivered the eulogy for her as well. She supported the presidential campaign of Barack Obama in 2008 and called his nomination as part of her father's dream. King was elected president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference in 2009. Her elder brother Martin III and her father had previously held the position. She was the first woman elected to the presidency in the organization's history, amidst the SCLC holding two separate conventions. King became upset with the actions of the SCLC, amid feeling that the organization was ignoring her suggestions and declined the presidency in January 2010. King became CEO of the King Center only months afterward. King's primary focus as CEO of The King Center and in life is to ensure that her father's nonviolent philosophy and methodology (which The King Center calls Nonviolence 365) is integrated in various sects of society, including education, government, business, media, arts and entertainment and sports. King believes that Nonviolence 365 is the answer to society's problems and promotes it being embraced as a way of life. King