Bernice King, the daughter of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., rebuked President Donald Trump for suggesting that the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which her father helped get handed into legislation, led to discrimination towards white folks.
Throughout a Monday sermon honoring MLK Day on the historic Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, the place King served as pastor, Bernice King described the forty seventh president of america as collaborating within the “killing of fact.”
“The latest declare by President Trump that the 1964 Civil Rights Act harmed white Individuals is simply improper, and it’s harmful. It rewrites historical past in a method that fuels worry and resentment. My father and so many leaders of the motion…didn’t danger their lives to divide this nation,” stated King, who serves as CEO of The King Heart. “They did so as a result of America was denying hundreds of thousands fundamental rights, the appropriate to work, the appropriate to vote, to reside the place they please, to maneuver via society with dignity.”
As theGrio reported final week, President Trump, throughout an interview with The New York Occasions, argued that the Civil Rights Act led to white folks being “very badly handled” and that “it was unfair in sure circumstances.”
“It completed some very fantastic issues, but it surely additionally harm lots of people — those that need to go to a school or need to get a job have been unable to get a job. So it was, it was a reverse discrimination,” Trump stated.
In her remarks on Monday, Bernice King stated sternly, “The Civil Rights Act didn’t give Black folks particular therapy. It made discrimination unlawful. The identical discrimination you’re making an attempt to show round and use.” She continued, “It required the legislation to guard everybody equally. That’s democracy.”
The youngest daughter of MLK made a direct attraction to white Individuals: “So to my white brothers and sisters, the Civil Rights Act was by no means meant to hurt you. It was meant to heal a nation damaged by injustice. Equity doesn’t steal from you. Justice strengthens us all.”
The youngest King youngster urged towards ceding to a “politics of worry” and “the lie that we should select between each other to thrive.”
“America is stronger when extra persons are included, after we are united in respect and love, not after we retreat in worry. The Beloved Group will not be constructed by blaming each other. It’s constructed by defending the dignity of everybody, and so forth this King vacation,” stated King, who added, “We’re not going backwards.”
Trump additionally confronted criticism for initially failing to honor the MLK federal vacation, although the White Home ultimately launched a proclamation from the president. The presidential memo made no specific point out of African Individuals’ battle for freedom, however fairly merely that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. “unified” hundreds of thousands to articulate the “immortal fact” that “the measure of an individual is discovered not within the shade of their pores and skin however within the content material of their character.”
“Donald Trump has zero curiosity in uniting this nation or recognizing its historical past and variety,” stated NAACP President Derrick Johnson.
The civil rights chief continued, “As a substitute, he desires to pit us towards one another in order that we don’t take note of the truth that his internet price has greater than doubled whereas households lose their well being care and entry to important companies; that non-public companies are raking in billions of {dollars} via ICE’s unlawful operations; that tech giants are making trillions on AI whereas the working class loses their jobs; and that his administration is violating federal legislation by refusing to launch the Epstein Information and to carry pedophiles accountable.”
