Martin Luther King’s daughter follows in his footsteps

TLANTA — To many, she is simply known as the youngest daughter of Martin Luther King Jr. But Bernice King, nicknamed “Bunny” by her parents, has grown up to become a minister and motivational speaker and, in October, was elected to be the next president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), the civil rights organization her father helped found five decades ago.

King, 46, the first woman president of the SCLC, said she is following not only in the footsteps of her father and brother, Martin Luther King III, who each served as SCLC president, but her mother Coretta Scott King, who played a key role in its creation in 1957.

“The organization felt that it, perhaps, was important to have another King at the helm in this time,” she said, “to kind of restore the spirit of Dr. King to the organization and to continue the work that he didn’t get to finish.”

She expects to work with churches, women, youth and the labor movement to engage communities in nonviolent activism.

As she steps into a new generation of civil rights challenges, King sees links to the past. For instance, the day she was elected SCLC president in late October, officials signed a permit to begin construction of the national memorial honoring her father in Washington.