Martin Luther King III to Speak to BYU About His Father’s “Beloved Community”

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Martin Luther King III needed help when he responded to a distress call from a Louisiana town after a hurricane in 2008. This led to his first encounter with The Church of Jesus Christ of Saints. Last days.

One Tuesday, he asked the church to send 1,500 volunteers to Houma, where the hardest hit groups were blacks and Native Americans. That Saturday, 1,500 Latter-day Saints showed up.

They stayed for a month.

“That’s what led me to notice them for the first time,” King said. “I’m a Baptist, and Baptists do a good job in isolation. What I mean by that is that the Baptist is not just a church, it’s a whole bunch of separate churches. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is certainly a church, but is working collectively around the world to effect change. “

This experience reminded the son of the late Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. and Coretta Scott King of his father’s call for “a beloved community” based on redemptive goodwill for all.

King will speak about the concept Tuesday at Brigham Young University, which is sponsored by The Church of Jesus Christ.

“The climate that the church wants to create in the world is truly a reflection of the ‘beloved community’ my father spoke of, a community where families can flourish, where there are opportunities,” said King Monday in an interview with the Deseret News. on the BYU campus.

In fact, BYU’s theme for its forum assemblies this year is “Building a Beloved Community,” a concept Reverend King Jr. helped popularize from 1956 onwards.

“Because my father spoke of creating ‘the beloved community’, they thought it would be appropriate for me to come and express what it really means, because I think it reflects what the values ​​of the university stand for. , certainly what the church represents.

King will deliver the forum speech at the Marriott Center at 11:05 am The conference is open to the public and will be broadcast live on BYUtv, BYUtv.org, KBYU-TV 11, Classical 89 FM, BYUradio 107.9 FM and SiriusXM 143.

King invited the campus community to his speech in a video posted to Twitter, saying the beloved community is one “where freedom, justice and equality exist for all mankind.”

“I’m going to talk about the things my father said that apply to us today, how he talked about creating this amazing society” based on non-violent means, he said. “In other words, we can live in a society where we don’t have to destroy personal property, where we treat people with dignity and respect. These are some of the things that I will expand on.

King pursued the nonviolent and civil rights work of his father and mother. He is a life member of the board of directors of the King Center for Nonviolent Social Change, a non-profit organization founded by Coretta King after her husband’s assassination in 1968.

Martin Luther King III poses for a portrait at BYU’s Gordon B. Hinckley Alumni and Visitors Center on Monday, September 27, 2021, before speaking at a BYU forum on September 28.
Shafkat Anowar, Deseret News

This is his fourth visit to Utah since the hurricane relief effort.

“This manifestation of work was amazing,” King said, “and it was very sincere and serious, and that’s when my relationship started. Our relationship grew, and I admired it. and gained more and more respect for the church since that first experience.

In 2019, he attended the RootsTech Family History and Technology Conference for the announcement of a $ 2 million donation from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to the International African American Museum Center for Family History, scheduled to open in 2022..

At the time, King called the church-museum relationship a reflection of the “beloved community” envisioned by his father.

In August, BYU announced the launch of a membership office in response to a report from the Campus Committee on Race, Fairness and Membership that found “evidence that racism has diminished the experience. and the sense of security and belonging “of black students – 1% of the student body – and others at school. BYU is 81% white.

“We are a very diverse nation,” King said. “Now the school might not be, but the hope is that the school is really serious about working on diversity, because I think, # 1, whoever comes here is going to worship Yes, it’s very structured, but many in our society need more structure, in my opinion, because we have moved away from some of the traditional values ​​that have made our society what it is.

The term “beloved community” was coined in 1913 by Josiah Royce, founder of the Fellowship of Reconciliation. Reverend King Jr. joined the fraternity and popularized the term, starting in 1956 after leading the bus boycott of Montgomery, Alabama.

“But the end is reconciliation; the end is redemption; the end is the creation of the beloved community, ”he said. “It’s that kind of spirit and that kind of love that can turn opponents into friends. It is this type of understanding goodwill that will transform the deep sorrow of old age into the exuberant joy of the new age. It is this love that will work miracles in the hearts of men.

King said he was a life member of the NAACP and was aware of the civil rights organization’s growing relationship with the Church of Jesus Christ, which this summer pledged $ 9.25 million. at the NAACP and the UNCF (United Negro College Fund).

“This does not mean that we are a society without problems, because we still have a lot of problems to solve, be it health, education, crime. There are so many challenges we need to focus on and work to eradicate them. “

King joined protests in Washington, DC last month and earlier this month and pressured President Joe Biden and Congress to pass federal voting rights legislation, to both to reinstate part of the 1965 Voting Rights Act overturned by the Supreme Court in 2013 and to stop an effort that led 18 states to enact 30 new laws restricting voter access.

“We had a good election and more people voted than ever before,” he said. “We and a lot of others had come out and said to people, ‘It’s important to vote’, and people did. When more people voted, for whatever reason, some states decided that we had to make voting more difficult for people rather than making it easier. “

King plans to return to Washington, DC on Oct. 5 for further protests for a federal vote and Senate obstruction bill, which he says has historically been used to support segregation, lynching and voting restrictions.

Another black leader will speak at a BYU forum later this fall. The November 30 address will be delivered by Rev. William J. Barber II, pastor of Greenleaf Christian Church in Goldsboro, NC, who was a member of the NAACP National Board of Directors from 2008-2020. Barber is the president of Repairers of the Breach.

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