Ahead of the national day of remembrance of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in 2022, mother, grandmother, author, pastor, and niece of MLK Jr., evangelist Alveda C. King, spoke with Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., for the senator’s program, “Unmuted with Marsha.”
Fox News Digital was given an exclusive preview of the video ahead of its air date.
Alveda King is a daughter of civil rights activist A.D. King and Naomi Ruth Barber King. She is chairman of the Center for the American Dream with the America First Policy Institute.
Dr. Alveda King, a niece of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., during a 2018 meeting with inner-city pastors at the White House in Washington, D.C., hosted by then-President Donald J. Trump. "We must come together as brothers and sisters," she told Sen. Marsha Blackburn in an interview that is being released on Jan. 17, 2022. (Photo by JIM WATSON/AFP via Getty Images)
During the conversation with Sen. Blackburn, Alveda King shared that her uncle’s “I have a dream” message is “deeply rooted in the American dream. And it’s important today, here in the 21st century, in this New Year of 2022, for us to reexamine what the American dream is,” she noted.
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“We know that we are one human race,” Alveda King told the senator. “We’re not even separate races … Science has shown that.”
“We can see that when we read the Bible in Acts 17:26, that we are one blood, one human race.” She was referring to this biblical passage: “From one man he made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands.”
She added, “[So] what does that mean in 2022, as we celebrate the birthday of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.?”
Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., speaks during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing entitled, "Texas Unconstitutional Abortion Ban and the Role of the Shadow Docket," in the Hart Senate Office Building, Washington, D.C., on Sept. 29, 2021. The latest episode of her YouTube video series, "Unmuted with Marsha," features a timely interview with Alveda C. King.
(Tom Williams/Pool via REUTERS)
Alveda King noted that today, even though we have different skin colors — “and that is ethnicity, not race — we must come together as brothers and sisters and respect human dignity.”
She spoke of her parents and of her extended family: “We grew up in a time — and I’m still living in this time and teaching this to my children and grandchildren — that we have to love [one another] and [promote] human dignity.”
This was a difficult realization for her as a young person, she suggested, after her uncle and others within her family were targeted or murdered for their views.
In this photo taken on April 9, 1968, in Atlanta, Georgia, the parents and widow of assassinated civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. listen to ceremonies at Morehouse College during a memorial for King shortly after his death. L-R: Reverend Martin Luther King Sr., his wife Alberta King, Coretta Scott King, and King Jr.’s daughter Bernice. (Photo by New York Times Co./Getty Images)
Alveda King said that after those experiences, she wanted to hate somebody. (Her uncle was assassinated in April 1968; her father, A.D. King, died the year after, in July 1969.)
But she said her beloved father told her, shortly after MLK Jr. was killed, “Alveda, you can’t hate white people. White people live with us. White people march with us … White people pray with us. White people die with us. The devil killed my brother. The devil killed your uncle.”
“So I was brought up my whole life … to forgive … and to love,” said Alveda King.
“Martin Luther King said, ‘I’ve decided to stick with love’ … He said that hate [was] too difficult a burden to bear.”
Alveda King was seventeen years old when her uncle was killed on April 4, 1968, in Memphis, Tennessee.
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She stressed that we are “one nation under God,” and — remembering that — we need “to work together … and to love each other and regard human dignity, from the womb to the tomb.”
“This is a 365-day” imperative, added Alveda King — not a once-a-year event or action.
“As we continue to love and regard and communicate [with each other] — and not hate — we will see that people will listen and respond accordingly.”
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She also told Sen. Blackburn during the illuminating conversation, “I pray that everyone who sees this show will remember, in 2022, to be kind.”
Sen. Blackburn’s entire video episode, “Unmuted with Marsha: Alveda King,” will be available on YouTube beginning Monday, Jan. 17, 2022, as the nation honors and remembers Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and his contributions to our country.
