Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news. 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.
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 BusinessWeek 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're 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?
Chaos the 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 the 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 to 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 to talk about how do we respect who we are from 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 program.
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 seeing 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. But 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 are going to 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 going to show certain results. I think it's up to certain courageous leaders to combine forces.
And stand against this.
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 representation 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 reflects who we are as a nation and even as a world, then it just means those of us who practice non violence are gonna have to organize and stradle 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 can 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, very skilled community. And it doesn't take anything away from anybody else's community who has intelligent and skilled individuals. And so the biggest thing Daddy says a little 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 across 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 it. 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 we think about it. We've only got about a couple of 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. He 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 gonna have to help him figure that out. So in this administration, we got to figure out where 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 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 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 Kingya. 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. This is Bloomberg, you know,