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Yolanda King Interview by Carol Boss
January 25, 2005 5:44 PM
archivesCarol Boss of Good Radio Shows interviews Yolanda King about her father, the late Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. [LISTEN]
WHITNEY: Yolanda King was just twelve years old, when her father, the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in 1968. Today, she's an actress and motivational speaker who keeps her father's dream alive through her own work. Carol Boss interviewed Ms. King and asked her to recall her childhood memories of being at home with her legendary father.
YOLANDA KING: My father was a buddy-daddy. He really spent most of his time with us playing, having fun, doing things that children love to do, which is, of course, play. He didn't believe in spanking kids. Of course, my mother said if he had spent more time with us, he probably would have changed his mind [laughs]. But when he was with us, he really just loved us. Loved on us.
And the time was short, but it was quality time. And my dad was really quite a funny man. He was a bit of a cut-up. He was a jokester. He loved to tease, he loved to laugh. He probably could have been quite an athlete as well. He taught me to swim when I was four and taught me how to ride a tricycle and then into a bicycle, and we played basketball and baseball and went to the local amusement park. He and I, the two of us, would ride the dangerous shake-you-up rides, he called them "faith machines." We'd get on them and just have a ball, he was a big kid.
CAROL BOSS: How old were you when you felt you really understood the impact of your father's work? Was there a year when you knew it had clearly influenced the personal direction you would take in life?
KING: I was probably in my twenties. I struggled with a lot of the legacy for a long time, probably actually into my thirties, before I really made peace with it. Because needless to say, when you come from such a tremendous legacy, there are awesome responsibilities. And expectations, even more importantly. And so, being able to find a place where I can enter it and be fully myself and at the same time, I think, make a real contribution to carrying on the ideals, the values, the principles, that my father and my mother have lived for.
BOSS: Do you consider the work that you do an evolution from his work?
KING: I do. I do. One of the programs that I'm most proud of, that is relatively recent launching through my company Higher Ground Productions, is the Inner Peace Circles, where we work with people on a monthly basis, we offer a tele-class and actually share with people the principles that I feel are really invaluable if one is going to attain a place of inner peace. Because my father was trying to take us as a nation, as a planet, this place of peace, this place of brotherhood and sisterhood, this world house he was trying to create where people could live together in peace and justice and with the kind of respect and appreciation for each other. I think we're not going to ever get there if more and more of us - until more and more of us really understand how important and what our responsibility is to find our own place of inner peace and to deepen that peace. Because I truly believe that it reverberates, where if you are able to carry that place and embody that place of peace, then it obviously contributes to wherever you find yourself - in your home, in your workplace, in your community, in every aspect of your life. And if more and more of us our really committed to doing that, I think it could make a real difference on the planet.
RECORDING OF MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR: All my friends, if there is any one thing that I would like for you to remember this evening, it is the fact that somebody must have some sense in this world. Somebody must have sense enough to meet hate with love. Somebody must have sense enough to meet physical force with soul force. If we will but try this way, we will be able to change these conditions, and yet at the same time, win the hearts and souls of those who have kept these conditions alive.
WHITNEY: Our interview with Yolanda King was produced by Good Radio Shows, based in Albuquerque.
Thanks for tuning in to Western Skies, produced at the KRCC studios in Colorado Springs. I'm Eric Whitney.
Posted by Eric Whitney on January 25, 2005 5:44 PM | Permalink
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