King’s Daughter Invokes Her Late Father’s Message
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ATLANTA — The oldest daughter of Martin Luther King Jr. and Coretta Scott King combined her love of acting with her passion for social justice as she reminded those remembering her parents Sunday that America has not yet attained peace and racial equality.
Yolanda King urged an audience at Ebenezer Baptist Church — where her father preached for several years — to be a force for peace and love and to use the King holiday yesterday to ask tough questions about their own beliefs on prejudice.
“We must keep reaching across the table and, in the tradition of Martin Luther King Jr. and Coretta Scott King, feed each other,” Yolanda King, 51, said at the end of an hour-long presentation that was part motivational speech, part drama.
The stage and television actress performed one-actor skits that told stories including a girl’s first ride on a desegregated bus and a college student’s recollection of the 1963 desegregation of Birmingham, Ala.
After the performance — attended by members of the extended King family and Yolanda’s sister, the Reverend Bernice King — Yolanda King and her aunt, Christine King Farris, signed copies of their books, and Bernice King graciously posed for photographs with attendees.
Meanwhile, paint brush in hand, President Bush helped spruce up a high school yesterday and tried to draw attention to a broader point — the value of community service on a day honoring the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr.
“I encourage people all around the country to seize any opportunity they can to help somebody in need,” Mr. Bush said from the library of Cardozo High, a predominantly poor, minority high school about 10 minutes from the White House.
“By helping somebody in need, you’re honoring the legacy of Martin Luther King,” Mr. Bush said.
“And by helping somebody in need, you’re really helping yourself; you’re lifting your soul,” he said.
Yesterday was a federal holiday for King, the slain civil rights leader who built a life around racial equality, nonviolent protest and public service.
Mr. Bush said people should treat the day as King’s late wife, Coretta Scott King, wanted it. “It is not a day off,” Mr. Bush said. “It’s a day on.”
