Bernice King

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Bernice King

Bernice Albertine King (born March 28, 1963 in Atlanta, Georgia, United States) is the second daughter and youngest child of the great civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr and Coretta Scott King. Her older siblings are Yolanda Denise King, Martin Luther King III, and Dexter Scott King. Bernice is the only King child to become a minister.

Due to her profile and skill in public speaking, King has been asked to speak around the world. Ebony magazine named her as one of their Ten of Tomorrow future leaders of the black community. She is also a soror of the Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Incorporated.

[edit] Career

Bernice was only five years old when her father died. At 17, she was invited to speak at the United Nations in the absence of her mother. She is a graduate of Douglass High School in Atlanta and she graduated from Spelman College with a degree in psychology before earning a joint degree in Theology and Law at Emory University.

Bernice says she once considered suicide before God intervened. At the age of 24, she decided to become a minister and completed a Master's degree in Divinity from the Candler School of Theology.

With her brother Martin Luther King III, she has played an active part in reforming the .

In 1996, King published a collection of her sermons and speeches called Hard Questions, Heart Answers which received a positive review from USA Today.

In 2000, she narrated the Lincoln Portrait at the Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival in Kiel.

In 2004, Bernice King participated in a march against same-sex marriage in Atlanta. This action was in direct contrast to the advocacy of her mother, Coretta Scott King, who was a long-time supporter of gay rights and the beliefs of Martin Luther King. Coretta Scott King has said that her husband supported the quest for equality by gays and reminded her critics that the 1963 March on Washington was organized by Bayard Rustin, an openly gay man.

In 2006, King was with her mother when she died in a hospital in Mexico. King is attributed with influencing her siblings to hold their mother's funeral at New Birth Missionary Baptist Church in Lithonia, Georgia, instead of Coretta's church home, Ebenezer Baptist Church. The King children allowed Coretta's body to lie in repose at Ebenezer, where the funerals of their father and paternal grandparents were held.

She is currently an elder at New Birth, a licensed attorney and member of the Georgia Bar, and works as a mediator.

On January 30, 2007, one year after the death of her mother Coretta Scott King, Bernice King founded the Be A King Scholarship at Spelman College (Atlanta, GA) in honor of her mother's legacy. Bernice King donated 100,000 dollars of her personal funds, 75,000 was donated from Home Depot and 14,000 dollars was donated from New Birth Missionary Baptist Church. The scholarship will be awarded to two rising seniors at Spelman college who has majored in the areas of either music, education or psychology.