Bernice King calls for urgent action as she unveils MLK holiday observance
Last Thursday’s annual news conference announcing the King Center’s plans for its Martin Luther King Jr. Holiday Observance opened with the center’s spokesperson, Mina Bryant, introducing Bernice A. King and inviting her to the podium to offer what she described as “a few brief remarks.”
King, dressed in peach, smiled as she stepped to the lectern.
“This is not gonna be brief,” she said.
King, the youngest daughter of Coretta Scott King and Martin Luther King Jr., stood before the audience gathered at the King Center’s Yolanda D. King Theatre for the Performing Arts with what she described as a message, not merely to commemorate her father’s legacy, but to confront the present moment.
“I stand before you with a mandate,” she said. “A moral charge, a national and global summons — because the hour is too dangerous, the divisions too deep, the despair too widespread for anything less.”
This year’s observance marks what would have been the 97th birthday of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., and the 41st anniversary of the federal holiday established in his honor.
The King Center will mark the occasion with a wide-ranging, nearly two-week slate of events that brings together artists, activists, business leaders, faith figures and young people around an increasingly pressing question: How does a divided nation learn to live together?
“There is not a more urgent bell to answer than the one reminding us of our interconnectedness in what my father called ‘the World House,’” King said. “This observance is meant to prepare people for the love-centered, strategic work required to build community and repair our world.”
The 41st annual King Holiday Observance, running through Jan. 19, will feature scheduled appearances by Cathy Hughes, John Hope Bryant and rappers 2 Chainz and T.I., among others.
The Carter Center and the National Center for Civil and Human Rights are also sponsoring and hosting events.
“We welcome people to see this week as a point not to retreat into silos, but to advance our shared agenda together,” said Paige Alexander, CEO of the Carter Center, which is hosting an opening reception.
Other events across the city, including programs hosted by the National Park Service’s Martin Luther King Jr. National Historical Park — which welcomes more than 1 million visitors a year to the area, injecting about $35 million annually into the economy — will also mark the occasion.
“We are in that inextricable web of destiny and love that Bernice King talked about earlier today. When spider webs unite, they can tie up a lion — and we are definitely in that web, tying up lions with The King Center,” said Reginald “Reggie” Chapple, superintendent of the National Park Service site, describing the longstanding partnership.
Since becoming CEO of the King Center, Bernice King has used the annual announcement of the week’s events to deliver what has effectively become a yearly address on the state of both the institution and the nation.
This year’s message was a response to what she described as a dangerously unsettled world, strained by conflict, corruption, climate crisis, economic exploitation, injustice, political extremism and the rapid emergence of artificial intelligence.
Against that backdrop, she said, the theme — “Mission Possible 2: Building Community, Uniting a Nation, the Nonviolent Way” — is not aspirational rhetoric.
“It is essential,” King said, standing in front of a giant poster of her father, who won the 1964 Nobel Peace Prize. “It is a global alarm, a moral siren, a call to every conscience unwilling to surrender humanity’s future to hatred, fear, violence or despair.”
King’s speech came one day after the killing of a woman in Minneapolis, an incident involving U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents that King described as “heartbreaking and unacceptable.”
“Mission Possible has never been a more crucial message,” said Jill Savitt, president and CEO of the National Center for Civil and Human Rights, which houses the Martin Luther King Jr. papers. “This year’s King holiday comes at a time when many people are tired, divided and uncertain about the future. Silence and complacency come at a cost.”
In response, the King Center’s programming, beginning Monday with the Kick-Off Day of Activation and Empowerment, will span civic engagement, youth education, cultural expression, faith and service.
Between panel discussions, workshops, film premieres, book readings, service projects, trainings and a youth summit, the observance will conclude Jan. 19 with the annual Martin Luther King Jr. Beloved Community Commemorative Service at Ebenezer Baptist Church.
The Rev. A.R. Bernard Sr., founding pastor of the Christian Cultural Center in Brooklyn, will deliver the keynote address.
One of the observance’s most visible moments will come Jan. 17, with the Beloved Community Awards, formerly known as the Salute to Greatness Awards.
The gala honors individuals and organizations whose work reflects a commitment to social justice, humanitarian service, innovation and environmental responsibility.
This year’s honorees include Billie Eilish, Viola Davis, Robert F. Smith, Warrick Dunn, Sesame Workshop and Cisco Systems. Musical performances will feature Chance the Rapper, October London and Goapele, followed by an after-party headlined by Con Funk Shun.
King said the scope of the observance reflects a deliberate effort to engage people across generations, professions and beliefs.
“Mission Possible 2 affirms that unity and justice are achievable,” she said, “But only if we commit ourselves to the nonviolent way.”
Still, King refused despair.
“But hear me clearly,” she said. “This is not the hour to shrink. This is the hour to rise.”
About the Author
Ernie Suggs is an enterprise reporter covering race and culture for the AJC since 1997. A 1990 graduate of N.C. Central University and a 2009 Harvard University Nieman Fellow, he is also the former vice president of the National Association of Black Journalists. His obsession with Prince, Spike Lee movies, Hamilton and the New York Yankees is odd.
