Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, Radio News. You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Masser and Tim Steneveek on Bloomberg Radio.
Well.
As all of you know, Monday is Martin Luther King Junior Day, a federal holiday that celebrates the life and legacy of Martin Luther King Junior. Over the next half hour, we're going to talk about race relations in America, including with the author of How We Heal, a Journey toward truth, racial healing, and community transformation from the inside out. It's written by the first female and first African American leader of the W. K. Kellogg Foundation. That conversation a little later on right.
And just a reminder, of course, Martin Luther King Day also happens to fall on January twentieth, which is the day that President elect Donald Trump will be inaugurated. This Monday, we Tim and I will be doing a special edition of Bloomberg Business Week that afternoon looking at the new incoming administration and all the policies that may come down. So we want to get into that and more with our next guest, who has a certain very personal story
and attachment of course to Martin Luther King Day. We were joined by Reverend doctor Bernice King. She's the chief executive officer of the Martin Luther King Junior Center for Nonviolent Social Change, which is also known as the King Center. She is the daughter of Martin Luther King, Junior and her mom, Coretta Scott King, founder of the King Center. Doctor King, so nice to have you here with us. You know, Monday, for many it's a holiday. Well, nice
to have you here. For many more, it's also a reminder of our difficult past around race relations and discrimination. What does the day mean to you? Honoring your dad.
Well, it's an opportunity, obviously for us to not just commemorate his life, but to really look further into his teachings. He was not just a civil rights leader, he was a teacher. He left us a blueprint as to how
to create a just, humane, equitable and peaceful world. And every year, one of the things that I encourage is that we study him more because he spoke about things that we as a nation and world needed to do to fight against what he saw as a triple equals of poverty, racism, and militarism as a threat to our humanity.
And so here we are once again this year, and.
As we inaugurate a new president, those teachings don't change, they stay the same. What we have to do is to connect to them and to connect to the spirit of that movement so we can continue to move our nation and world forward.
I was going to ask you just to follow up. You said, you know your dad leaving us a blueprint. How would you think he's doing how we are doing today with that blueprint?
Well, you know, he said to us, and where do we go from here?
A community in nineteen sixty seven the book that published then that we must find a way to live together as brothers, and he meant humanity, as brothers and sisters, or together we would be forced to perish as foods.
And I think we've not found a way to do that.
I think he further divided around different ideologies instead of trying to spend time learning in spite of our differences, how do we live together? How do we create a coexistence where we don't co annihilate one another?
You know?
How do we create a world where everyone has decent and affordable housing and access to healthcare? You know, how do we ensure that people who may end up in the homeless population. How do we ensure that that is short lived and we create a pathway to people to reclaim their lives. How do we create a fair distribution of wealth in this nation? He talked about having a
radical redistribution of wealth. He didn't talk about it in the sense that we just have to remove wealth from someone else, but we have to figure out how do we balance our economy so that people can have enough to do well. And then, of course he talked about how do we respect who we are from the different cultures and different backgrounds. We'll never all agree on everything, and we'll never all like each other, we'll never all think alike, but we certainly can spend time learning how
to live together. So that takes a lot of listening, curiosity, It takes a lot of courage, It takes a lot of humility, It takes compassion. These are all the things that he taught us through the spirit and the heart of nonviolence that he led that movement in.
Well, it's that last point that I want to talk about, doctor King, because we've been talking about over the last few months the dismantling of DEI programs at many companies. If I just look at the stories that are One of our reporters, Jeff Green has written in recent months. Here's some headlines. Walmart under fire from investors for cutting DEI programs, Meta retreats from diversity and inclusion, appeasing Trump. Amazon is halting some of its diversity and inclusion programs.
McDonald's walks back DEI goals in latest corporate retreat. Other companies including Deer and more.
And we talked about Corporate America, you know, did hire more black workers for a while and then it stopped.
How do you like, how do you in an environment such as this where see things seem to not necessarily be going in that direction. How do you have optimism?
Well, always have optimism because there are always people, you know, like Target and Costco and others, who who choose to follow the pathway that we all know is for the best of our nation and our world. Look, if we don't have an inclusive economy as a nation, then we're not going to survive in the global economy. And so I think there's gonna be some hard realities we're going to be faced with in a few years.
If what those.
Who have sought to remove DEI have done you know it's gonna show certain results.
I think it's up to certain.
Courageous leaders to combine forces and stand against this.
Uh.
It really, at the end of the day, is really not about the language anyway. You know, It's about who we are as a people. Do we have a love centered way of leading our cultures? In corporate America? You know, in our educational institutions, when we look a lot around at our different cultures, do we have everyone that's needed in terms of represent at the table. You know, whether you call it DEI, you call it representation, or you call it a belonging culture or for us, the beloved community.
How do we create beloved community cultures? Because at the end of the day, it's about the outcomes. So if they remove the names, they remove what they call DEEI, but then they are still committed to getting to certain outcomes,
then maybe there's no problem. But if removing it also means that we're not going to ensure that we have cultures that reflect who we are as a nation and even as a world, then it just means those of us who practice non violence are going to have to organize and stratig our chives and come up with plans to put pressure where is needed.
Doctor King, what do you think white Americans still don't understand about Black America today and what do you believe it will take to achieve true racial equality.
Well, the first thing is Black America is not trying to take anything from anybody.
I think that's the first thing people need to understand.
There's this threat, like you know, if Black America were in charge, they will remove us and nothing to be further from the truth. If you study the history of our race, we've always been holistically. It doesn't mean there are exceptions in every racial grouping, but if you study as a whole, we're very forgiving people. We are very inclusive culture. We tend to stand, you know, with what is right and what is fair and what is just. And I think there's a misnomer that if we are
in these roles we may do what others do. I think there's a misnomer as to who we are that you know, we just get jobs or we get opportunities just because we're black.
No, we're very qualified.
If you spend any time on social media, you see the number of young children out of the black community who are finishing college and getting PhD degrees when they're not even fifteen yet.
They're not even fourteen yet.
So we have a very intelligent, a very skilled community. And it doesn't take any thing away from anybody else's community who has intelligent and skilled individuals. And so we the biggest thing, Daddy says, I'm very powerful. He said, people hate each other because they don't know each other.
They don't know each other because they don't communicate with each other.
They don't communicate with each other because they're separated from each other. And so as long as we keep division and separation, then the myths can continue to be the truth. So we have to find a way, as I said, to learn to live together and cross some of these boundaries and not allow whatever every other commentary may say about, you know, any community to rule the day.
I need to come and connect with you. I need to learn more about you. I need to spend time with you. I need to experience your culture.
It doesn't mean I may embrace all of it, but I have a greater understanding of it. And I think that's what a love centered person, a compassionate person, a curious person. Right, we're doing a person more importantly who wants to see a better world.
Well, you know, we think about We've only got about a couple minutes left here, but we are thinking about Martin Luther King day on Inauguration Day, incoming President Donald Trump, and what his administration might bring in terms of policies and what it means for Black Americans in equality in the United States. You know, we kind of get the sense that your dad, you know, tried to engage power to influence change. She seemed very pragmatic and yet took
those risks. Do you think your father would try to engage with the right, the conservative right, to get them to better understand the implications of their positions or is that not even possible? And again, only about a minute and a half here.
Oh, it's always possible. Non violence believes in the impossibility.
Non violence actually can help overcome what seems to be impossible.
So through strategy and plan.
When he went to see Johnson, and Johnson said, look, I've done as much as I come the civil rights right now, I can't get the votes on voting rights. Daddy went back and said, well, we're gonna have to get him some power. We're going to have to help him figure that out. So in this administration, we got to figure out what are the connection points. You know, who are the people in the administration we might be able to have access to who may understand that can then translate the message.
It's about strategy, and nonviolence helps you with that.
Do you have faith in the Trump administration helping out?
I have the Black community.
I have faith in God, and I believe in the power of a collective conscience that is committed to freedom, justice and quality.
And I believe it is possible.
That's why our theme is, you know, mission Possible, protecting freedom, justice and equality. Excuse freedom, justice and democracy through the spirit of non violence three sixty five, which is kingy and non violence is taught and demonstrated by my father.
That's what I have faith.
In, doctor King. Just twenty five seconds left here. What do you hope every American kind of thinks about when it comes to our country here?
I want them to remember that as a humanity, we have been to these places before. Maybe not literally us, but human beings have been in difficult, challenging times. We come from those individuals, and we too have the capacity to rise to the occasion and meet the challenges and move our nation and worw forth.
Thank you so much for finding time for us, our thoughts with you, certainly as we prepare for the holiday and to mark his memory and his legacy on Monday. That is Reverend doctor Bernice King, chief Executive Officer of the King Center, joining us from Atlanta on this Wednesday.
This is Bloomberg.
As we mentioned earlier, we're spending a good portion of the final hour of our show focused on race relations in race in America ahead of the Martin Luther King Junior Holiday on Monday. We just spoke to Reverend doctor Bernice King, the CEO of the Martin Luther King Junior Center for Non Violent Social Change, also known as the King Center.
Right and Lea.
June Montgomery Tabron is the first female and first African American leader of the W. K. Kellogg Foundation. It's one of the largest philanthropic institutions in the United States. Also the author of a new book, How We Heal, a Journey toward Truth, racial healing and community transformation from the inside out. And we really want to start at the beginning of the book. June, welcome, welcome, Nice to have
you here with Tim and myself. You know, it's so wild to be coming off of a conversation with doctor Bernice King and then to see how you start your book. Take us back the Sunday in late June of nineteen sixty three. You were eight months old.
Absolutely, and it's reflecting on the speech that doctor King gave, the speech that actually was the preface to his I had a dream speech, and I reflect on how important that that speech was actually first given in Detroit, where I was born, and was the beginning of my own healing journey in America, which is the story, very part of the story of the book that we have launched.
So well, a lot happened between then and you becoming the ninth President and CEO of the W. K. Kellogg Foundation. It is one of the largest philanthropic institutions in the US. How do you draw that line though, and you do it in the book. How do you draw that line from that moment when you were an infant to this point in your career.
Yeah, And it's a journey that I've been on, a personal healing journey. It's the journey our nation has been on, and it's the journey that I have.
Led at the W. K. Kellogg Foundation. We've seen.
Results coming out of the civil rights movement and the leadership of doctor Martin Luther King, We've continued to grapple with the issue of race in America. Our work at the W. K. Kellogg Foundation has been about how to address racism head on and to begin to dismantle those systems that disadvantaged children. Our work is about improving the lives of all children in America. And I am one
of those children. And the story in the book is about how my journey encountered racism, but how it strengthened me, and how I learned to heal from those encounters, and how I then carried that into my work at the W. K.
Kelloc Foundation, and how we know it is the work for the future of this nation.
If we are going to connect people across our differences.
Well, Jude, how can we though see more of your stories?
And I think it's I think it's fair to say, you know, the Bloomberg News team talked about how corporate America was hiring more black workers coming off of George Floyd, coming off of the pandemic, and then it stopped, and how do we ensure that the trend continues in terms of your own story of where you started and where you are today, that even though you face challenges, had to deal with obstacles and faced racism, how do we first of all get rid of it in the country,
but help others to be able to face it and achieve so much.
More sure, And we work with Corporate America and a work in a body of work that we have called Expanding Equity. And what I know from that work is that companies are not retreating in this space. They understand and the business case of diversity. They know that their
companies are better off with diverse talent and perspectives. And what I've learned working with these companies is that they see how they are higher performers as a result of their diversity, and they're continuing to make sure that they have that It is a business imperative for them. So that is the work of our nation is to make
sure that everyone is engaged in our economy. And the numbers show that we conducted a study that indicates we could unleash an additional eight trillion dollars in economic growth in GDP by twenty fifty if we were just to make sure that all of our human capital was properly, properly utiliz are you since.
Well, you know, I just want to jump in because we only have a couple of minutes left, and I want to make sure I get your thoughts on this because it's in the news day in, day out. But Walmart cut its de I programs, McDonald's walk back DEI, you have Meta retreating from DEI. Amazon halting some of its DEI programs. These are just headlines from the last couple of weeks. Our companies. How do you feel about them? How do you think can we still does it set
us back? Do we still tap into that human capital if we're if we're not conscious of this stuff.
I think it's a headline.
I think we have to really understand what that means. In many cases, what every company knows is that they have to compete for talent. They have to continue continue to build and grow talent. And you're not going to do that if you're not fully accessing our human capital.
So the naming may change.
The understanding that this is a business imperative and we almost have the best talent is not going away.
So even though we see these headlines, you think Corporate America are certainly the big companies, the publicly held companies where we're seeing these headlines. You say that they still you believe that they're still committed to DEI efforts. Absolutely, yes, all right, that's go ahead to him.
Well, it was just with thirty seconds left. Then why be so public about moving away from them?
I think in this world today that the need for healing is imperative, and that's why we wrote the book and issued it in this moment. The narrative in this nation is divisive and it's forcing people to choose positions. Healing is about connections. Healing is about bringing people together across their differences, and that is the work of the nation for the future, and that is what we know people want to do.
Well that I like ending on that optimistic note, June, thank you so much. Lea June Montgomery Tabron, President and CEO of the Kellogg Foundation. The new book How We Heal This is Bloomberg