Top 91 Quotes & Sayings by Bernice King
Explore popular quotes and sayings by Bernice King.
Last updated on September 17, 2024.
Some of the aspects of my speaking style are inherited and come naturally to me. I didn't take classes, and I didn't do anything to hone my skills.
Among her many accomplishments, my mother is often identified as the leader of the Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday movement.
We cannot afford to regard as normal the presence of injustice, inhumanity, and violence, including their verbal and cyber manifestations.
The private sector enjoys tremendous freedom in the U.S, as it should. With freedom, however, comes responsibilities.
Always realize that even your strongest advocate and opponent is a part of the human family; albeit they may have small shortcomings and even strength in them, they are part of that human family.
You will encounter misguided people from time to time. That's part of life. The challenge is to educate them when you can, but always to keep your dignity and self-respect and persevere in your personal growth and development.
Nonviolence as a lifestyle and perpetual strategy will allow us to be on the offense instead of continually on the defense. We will be able to move the ball down the field with team decisions and playmaking versus constantly thinking about how the opposing forces are moving the ball.
Consider all of the possibilities for positive global progress if we utilized nonviolence as the central value of our culture, encompassing our law enforcement and labor practices, which currently include people in numerous nations working for inhumane wages in unhealthy conditions.
We must rediscover our faith in the future and join with one another to ensure that nonviolence is the prevalent choice for government, law enforcement, the non-profit sector, business, education, media, entertainment, arts, and for the global citizenry.
My mother and Ethel Kennedy became good friends and worked together on a number of causes they had shared with their husbands. They together co-chaired 'A Time to Remember' to mobilize a movement for gun control.
My dad was one who - he was nonpartisan, first of all. He learned to work with whatever administration was in office.
In my view, it was no accident that Nelson Mandela was chosen by God to lead the people of South Africa. There are very few people who could be imprisoned, kept away from their family and loved ones, and exit that same prison with such a powerful spirit of love and a desire for reconciliation.
With The King Center as her base, my mother pressed on to fulfill a role that changed lives and legislation. She was a woman who refused to surrender the reigns of what she knew to be her assignment, even when male civil rights and business leaders tried to convince her that she should leave the work of building her husband's legacy to them.
King-ian nonviolence is a way of thinking and living and is not confined to the work of social and systemic change.
We are carrying collectively a lot of trauma, especially those of us in the African-American community. And if we're not careful, it'll overtake us, and we'll self-destruct.
What I'm trying to do is fulfill what my father said, which is, 'We have to find a way to live together as brothers and sisters, or together we're going to perish as fools.'
Like my father, I believe that nonviolence is the antidote to what he called 'the triple evils of racism, poverty and militarism.' These three evils were consuming our hopes for community in 1964, and, fifty years later, we remain divided because of their festering effects.
Do we want to be successful, or do we just want to make noise just to make it? Or just to put something on the record? I'll be honest with you, I'm tired of putting stuff on the record. I'm ready to see some real transformation and change.
The time has long since come for truth, transparency, and talks in every sector of society, including media, advertisement and entertainment. We can challenge each other, gain understanding, and create a more just, humane, and peaceful world.
All of us have to be committed to a life beyond our own aspirations.
How do we expect change to occur if we are not willing to put on the whole armor of God and fight injustice wherever it raises its ugly head?
Something big is going on. I'm talking about a society that refuses to allow injustice just to persist without making our voices heard and without organizing to bring about effective change through our voting system.
Continue to speak out against all forms of injustice to yourselves and others, and you will set a mighty example for your children and for future generations.
People have labeled me homophobic. If I was homophobic, I wouldn't have friends who are gay and lesbian, so that can't be true.
My first introduction to South Africa's struggle for freedom came when I was just 17. I had volunteered to speak in my mother's stead at a United Nations forum on South Africa because she was unable to attend on that occasion.
Seek out your brothers and sisters of other cultures and join together in building alliances to put an end to all forms of racial discrimination, bigotry, and prejudice. There are people of good will of all races, religions, and nations who will join you in common quest for the betterment of society.
The more you resist something, the more aggressive it becomes.
Choosing nonviolence does not mean that one will never get angry or become upset with others, including the ones we love.
I wouldn't say I'm against same-sex marriage. I believe in freedom and equality for all people. I believe that when it comes to gay marriage, that's a political and legal issue that has to be dealt with in that arena. I have privately held beliefs, but when it comes to that, it's properly placed in the political and legal arena.
Every time I go to these racial forums, it is people who are alike, or it is progressives and liberals. So I said, 'At some point, we've got to bring the progressives and the liberals and the conservatives together.'
In the end, I still have the same hope as my father - that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the last word.
I am urging Americans to be more careful about the kinds of media we support with our consumer spending. We've got to invest less in the media that glorifies violence and more in entertainment that lifts up the values of love, compassion, and the best in human nature.
Environmental injustice is a tangible, intolerable example of an exhibited moral laxity and minimal concern for healthy standards by corporations and political structures based on the race, ethnicity, and class of those being impacted.
My favorite preacher is not with me anymore, and that's my father.
Before my mother was a King, she was a gifted vocalist and musician, whose skill and academia garnered her a scholarship to the prestigious New England Conservatory for Music in Boston.
Thank God for the efforts of Black Lives Matter - we've seen an awakening in this era in a way we didn't see in Daddy's era in terms of people coming to grips with white privilege.
It is incumbent on the media industry to discourage the glorification of media violence. It is also incumbent on consumers who love America to support this effort with selective patronage campaigns to encourage media that provides uplifting content and to boycott the worst offenders, if necessary.
Before my mother was a King, she climbed trees and wrestled with boys. And won. Even as a child, Coretta Scott demonstrated that her gender would not deter her success, nor did it detract from her strength.
It is time for humanity to reset our spiritual compass from self-centeredness to other-centeredness.
Unlike some people, my father would try to meet with President-elect Trump because he recognizes that in order to move the agenda of justice, freedom, and equality forward, you can't just protest and resist. You also have to negotiate as well.
My father provided some very important guidance in how we deal with conflict and polarization.
Daddy taught us through his philosophy of nonviolence, which placed love at the centerpiece, that through that love we can turn enemies into friends. Through that love, we can create more dignified atmospheres.
Nonviolence will empower and equip us to bring generations to the table and fuse our knowledge, gifts, and zeal together.
Love is not a weak, spineless emotion; it is a powerful moral force on the side of justice.
Refuse to be disheartened, discouraged, distracted from your goals in life.
Each of us must decide whether it is more important to be proved right or to provoke righteousness.
How do we navigate and process painful biases and conflicting emotions and press on to be sacrificial and suffer in the struggle? And what do we do with images and depictions that, known or unknown to those perpetuating them, may contribute to the impediment of human progress?
With continued prayer and an equally-determined commitment to action for needed anti-violence reforms, let us resolve to work toward a new era in which every American child and every adult are protected from the ravages of brutality, safe and secure in our homes and schools and communities.
When my father died, the money he left us would have dried up within a year were it not for my mother... We might very well have ended up on welfare.
As I reflect on the legacy of my father, the greatest aspect is his legacy of peace.
Before she was a King, my mother was a peace advocate, a courageous leader, and an accomplished artist.
We are faced with the dilemma of how or if we demonstrate where we stand on critical issues and corresponding social ills. We are also bombarded with so many instances of inhumanity that it can be difficult to determine what part we play in human progress.
My father literally fought his entire life to ensure the inclusion of all people because he understood that we were intertwined and connected together in humanity.
In 1985, I joined my mother in a protest against apartheid in which we were arrested at the South African embassy in Washington, D.C. And she was at President-elect Mandela's side in Johannesburg when he claimed victory in South Africa's first free elections.
My mother made countless sacrifices so that her children - and all children - could grow up in a better nation and world.
In addition to needed gun control reforms, America urgently needs a stronger protest movement dedicated to reducing the glorification of violence in our culture - in music, film, television, video games, and even the Internet.
At Grinnell College, for the first time in my life, I was in an all-white setting. It was a shocking experience.
Some people feel like I'm arrogant. It's unfortunate, because people don't know my heart.
I didn't have a father to deal with about boyfriends. I didn't have a father to show me how a man and woman relate in a family setting. Therefore, I have given over my life to mentoring young people. I'm adamant about young people who have been denied a father/daughter relationship.
My father really set the tone for us to be a more moral nation, to take a moral high ground in everything that we do.
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