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Loading ...SCLC elects anti-gay MLK daughter as its president
10.30.2009 4:00pm EDT
(Atlanta) The Rev. Bernice King has been chosen as the first woman to head the civil rights organization co-founded by her father, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.
The Southern Christian Leadership Conference announced her election as its eighth president Friday morning. Interim President Byron Clay called King and said she accepted the position.“In the spirit of your father, Martin Luther King Jr., we look forward with anticipation to your leadership,” Clay told King, 46, as reporters listened to his end of the conversation.
She could be heard responding, “Thank you very much.”
“SCLC is a great organization with a rich history,” Clay told reporters. “She is excited. I am excited. The nation will be excited.”
In 2004, Bernice King helped lead a march against same-sex marriage in Atlanta. This action was in contrast to the advocacy of her mother, Coretta Scott King and her older sister Yolanda Denise King, both long-time outspoken supporters of gay rights.
“Bernice says herself that she knows deep within that her father did not march and did not take a bullet for same-sex marriage,” said MLK niece Alveda King to the Associated Press at the time. “I don’t believe that people should be penalized for their affections, but we need to be clear on the purpose of sexuality and marriage, that purpose being procreation.”
The 52-year-old organization met for seven hours behind closed doors at its national headquarters in downtown Atlanta on Thursday. General counsel Dexter Wimbish said ballots were tallied by an independent third party and locked in a bag which was locked in a safe. They were unsealed Friday.
The other candidate was Judge Wendell Griffen of Little Rock, Ark. He was the first black attorney to work for a major Arkansas law firm and is an ordained minister and pastor of New Millennium Church.
Martin Luther King Jr. was the SCLC’s first president, serving from 1957 until his death in 1968. His eldest son, Martin Luther King III, was president from 1998 to 2003.
Bernice King inherits an SCLC and issues much changed from the days of her father’s leadership. And she will have to work to rebuild the organization, which has stumbled in recent years.
“She can hearken back to her father’s legacy, but she’s going to have to redefine it,” said Emory University political science professor Andra Gillespie. “She now, as his child, is going to have to figure out a way to push that legacy forward so we don’t perpetuate a stagnant, chauvinistic civil rights agenda.”
Internal bickering has overshadowed signs of progress for SCLC that included paying off millions in debt and opening a $3 million headquarters in Atlanta. A former state director in Florida accused several national leaders of financial mismanagement and the president of the Los Angeles chapter last fall clashed with leadership over his support for gay marriage in California.
Today, SCLC has roughly 10,000 members and nearly 80 chapters in 17 states from Georgia to California. The group has also opened a nonviolent conflict resolution center in Israel, with plans to open 10 international sites in 10 years.
Charles Steele of Alabama resigned as president on Jan. 31 and still works with the group as a conflict resolution consultant. Clay has served as interim president since February. It is not yet known when he will step down and King will take over as president.
With reports from the Associated Press.
I believe Martin Luther King will roll over in his grave because of his anti-gay daughter!!
I don’t know what they were thinking she in not honorable like her mother or father or her siblings.
This just adds another religious group to the list of foes. That’s fine though, let them march against us, because 200,000 of us could show up in Atlanta tomorrow… what would the disgraceful daughter of a great leader do then?
Amongst the many things I’ve learned over my 54 years on Earth is that folks, who’ve endured heinous oppression, often themselves engage in heinous oppression of others and are void of anything resembling compassion or empathy.
Nathan and Fred,
I wouldn’t be so quick to judge her. What her father fought for was that she be free enough to be judged for who she was, what she believed in, and what she accomplishes.
Given that she is not her father, I believe her legacy is her own, not some societal expectation that she behaves in a certain way.
She may be anti-gay civil rights, but she is deserving of judgment based on her own actions and words, which I find I strongly disagree with, rather than a comparison to her family members.
Unfortunately, I do not consider her the problem. I much more consider her lacking social awareness, education, and her fallback on religion to guide who she allows herself to be.
To that I say, civil marriage is not established to foster procreation. Procreation is a societal goal, not an individual goal. Given that, I do agree with her: Her father may have, given the opportunity to witness the current civil rights movement, been on the anti-gay side.
Until you evil people deny the right to marry to infertile couples, couples over child bearing age and those that wish not to have children you have no right to use the whole “Marriage is for procreation” only crap on us!
all i have to say is “Ironic”.
I’m sure she will provide fine leadership for the SCLC, and personally I wish her luck. To my knowledge she has never been an opponent of gay rights, just an opponent of gay marriage. Plenty of people feel the same way, and many of them are far more insidious than her. While her views are contrary to my own, I have difficulty seeing her as the enemy. Deluded, perhaps. Blinded by her misunderstanding of her own religion, certainly. But the enemy, no.
Animals rut to procreate. Humans indulge in sexual activities to reinforce emotional bonds, to create a family unit of mutual support and affection. A marriage license is in fact not needed in order to procreate — look at the numbers of women of her own race who are bareing and raising children outside the bonds of matrimony, sans license. The ultimate purpose of marriage, under both civil and ecumenical law, is to control wealth. Its simple economics; Unmarried folks are penalized for being single. Keep the fags and fagettes from their civil rights to marry and the government collects more in taxes and pays out less in benefits. Relegion has formed an unholy alliance with the tax collector.
Considering how many women NOT HIS WIFE Martin was trying to ‘procreate’ with, I think this is an argument best left alone.
Another sad day for the SCLC.
Note the comments by Professor Gillespie from Emory. Especially the one about a “stagnant, chauvinistic civil rights agenda.” Like one where everyone should support civil rights for blacks, because it’s so obviously the only right thing to do, but then let’s exclude the gays because they want to go against the Bible. Really. Like the blacks who conveniently ignore the Biblical instructions on keeping slaves?
Rev. King is in a position very similar to President Obama. Both have an obligation to support civil rights. One is at least forthright about her belief that gay civil rights aren’t the same as black civil rights. I can at least respect some of that argument. I can’t respect the inaction of a black President who speaks many pretty words, but whose inaction leaves the impression that he’s a lot more homophobic than he would ever think. I don’t really give a good goddamn about Rev. King’s bias, because her organization has become almost completely irrelevant. I do care about a black President who seems to not understand that inaction on antigay laws is going to destroy any moral credibility he has with gays and social progressives. This includes libertarians. Anybody really think it would be such a stretch to hear a conservative talking head start reminding nonwhites that if he can betray the gays, he can betray others too. Watch your back. Notice that you don’t hear the NAACP allowing too much of this foolishness, because their central office is very aware of the way that divide and conquer has been used against blacks. As for Rev. King, there is every reason to contrast her homophobia with her late mother’s full-on support for all aspects of gay civil rights. I don’t recall anything in the New Testament about proving your godliness by being more of a bigot instead of less.
Robert look at the legacy of Martin Luther King Jr. and Coretta Scott King, both died working day in and day out to promote equality for all however Bernice King believes in equality for some not equality for all which is the type of thinking her parents worked so hard against. She does not deserve to be president merely because she makes a mockery of what her parents fought for, she doesn’t deserve it because she advocates for what they fought for.
I’m not waiting for her to prove her own actions wrong.
I want equality now. Today. She ain’t ready for that, I don’t care about that organization.
1992 I hosted G.L.A.A.D. Steering Committee meeting because SCLC boycotted Dallas.
Ain’t been in a mood for 27 years at this point to put up with bigots.
SCLC’s decision is a problem because it will drive a wedge between SCLC and other civil rights groups (which support gay equality). I imagine the NAACP isn’t happy about this.
Of all people…her stance sickens me. Many gays supported their civil rights…funny how quickly she forgot that. Also her attitudes are NO different than those who killed her father. She should be ashamed…Equal rights for just some I suppose!