SCLC Update: Will Bernice King Take the Helm?

According to an AP report the Rev. Bernice King is among the list of candidates to lead the Southern Christian Leadership Council.

Rev. King is the daughter of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. a co-founder of SCLC. Rev. Bernice along with her brother Martin Luther King III is said to have played an active part in reforming SCLC. This should raise concerns for those who hope that SCLC would turn the corner on LGBT rights.

In 2004, Bernice King participated in a march against marriage equality for same sex partners in Atlanta. This action was in direct contrast to the advocacy of her Mother, Coretta Scott King, who was a long-time supporter of LGBT rights and the beliefs of Martin Luther King. Corretta Scott King said that her husband supported the quest for equality by gays and reminded her critics that the 1963 March on Washington was organized by Bayard Rustin, an openly gay man. Civil rights leader Julian Bond, chair of the NAACP, told a group of University of Virginia history students he chose not to attend Coretta Scott King's funeral at New Birth Missionary Baptist Church (where Bernice King serves as a pastor) because of the anti-gay stance taken by the church's senior pastor.

In other developments, SCLC co-founder and long-term leader, Dr. Joseph Lowery, who is one of the country’s top civil rights leaders and the man who gave the benediction at the inauguration of President Obama, will be one of the 16 awardees of this year’s Presidential Medal of Freedom. The White House announced the list on Thursday. Lowery helped organize the famous Montgomery, Alabama bus boycott in the mid-1950s. Lowery like the elder Kings and the late Yolanda King is a long-time supporter of LGBT civil rights.