MLK’s daughter warns ‘America may go to hell’ – echoing her father’s own words

Obviously troubled by the landscape of America today that still reflects racism and violence, the daughter of Martin Luther King Jr., Bernice King, delivered a fiery speech yesterday (April 3) at the same church the slain Civil Rights leader delivered a sermon on the same day 50 years ago. A minister herself, Bernice King invited her brother Martin Luther King III up to the pulpit as she told the packed Mason Temple Church of God in Christ in Memphis what her father’s next sermon was intended to be about. The title was “American May Go to Hell.” She told the audience, ““If you would permit me, I think as I look at the landscape of our world today, America may still go to hell,” Bernice King warned. “So 50 years later, I’m here to declare and decree not only must America be born again but it’s time for America to repent.” In a transcript carried by the Huffington Post, she said America has fumbled its responsibility to deal with the three evils her father warned about: racism, poverty and militarism. “We have not, in 50 years, dealt with, as daddy challenged us to deal with, the last vestiges of racism,” she said. “We must repent because daddy challenged us to deal with a second evil: poverty, which we have refused to confront in this nation.” She added that militarism “has robbed us of the necessary resources to address the social injustices and the social ills and the social discrepancies in our nation,” noting that her father said countries who spend more money on military than social advancement are “rapidly approaching a spiritual death.” With a cadence in her voice similar to her father’s, Bernice King challenged America to break its “vicious cycles” and praised the Parkland, Florida, students for standing up against gun violence and “social decay.” She also noted that it wasn’t by chance that the granddaughter of the civil rights leader stood onstage during the recent March For Our Lives rally in Washington, D.C. to call for a “gun-free world.” King added, “We will get to the Promised Land, but each one of us has to make an individual decision to repent of our ways, repent for being drawn into the divisive discourse in this nation.” MLK III took to the pulpit as well, also praising the March 14 marchers for carrying on his father’s non-violent means of protest. He got emotional for a bit, talking about the day his father left for Memphis and how he said, “Daddy, don’t go.” It was MLK III’s daughter Yolanda Renee King, just 9, who appeared and spoke at the March for Our Lives in Washington, D.C. last month. MLK III said, “Dad taught us that it only takes a few good women and men to bring about change. So I want to rush to tell you, do not get anyways tired. Why? Because we’ve come much too far from where we started. You see, nobody ever told us that our roads would be easy, but I know … our God didn’t bring us this far to leave us.”