Alveda King: Protest Is Necessary But It Must Be Prayerful and Peaceful

EXCERPT:

KING: "I’m reminded of my father, Rev. Alfred Daniel Williams King standing on a car in 1963 after our home in Birmingham, Alabama had been burned and bombed — fire bombed. Dad stood on the car and he says, 'If you must hit someone, hit me, but I would rather you go home and pray. My family and I are fine.' Terrence is correct. Protest is necessary. It’s required at this time. It must be prayerful. It must be peaceful. Leaders have to be calming the masses. Not saying don’t protest. I’m protesting. What has happened has been wrong. Not just to George Floyd, certainly to George, but there are others who have experienced that same fate. We know that it has nothing really to do with skin color because we had African-American policemen to attack African-American college students in Atlanta with tasing them and roughing them up and breaking the young hand because they were out on the street after curfew returning to their homes. And they were not violently protesting. So, this has to stop. But we have to pray. And leadership, leaders, whether you are just a leader of your own household, whether you are on your job, a minister, an elected official, whoever you are, a CEO of a corporation, let’s assure each other, let’s calm each other. Violence is immoral. Martin Luther King Jr. did say that. And by me as a Christian knowing Christ, I know we have to be prayerful, not fearful, and not violent."