Oakland, CA - On April 10, 2006, the eldest daughter of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Coretta Scott King, Yolanda King, joined Susannah Heschel, daughter of Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, to discuss their fathers' legacies and contributions to the Civil Rights Movement.

“Daughters of the Dream: A Conversation with Yolanda King and Susannah Heschel” was a dynamic conversation about the struggle for equal rights and justice, and  challenged attendees to use the lessons of the Civil Rights Movement in pursuing their goals and achieving dreams of equality.

King was dedicated to encouraging personal growth and positive social change through acting, producing, speaking, and teaching. She was the founder of Higher Ground Productions, an organization committed to teaching people to celebrate diversity and embrace unity. She died May 15, 2007, in Santa Monica, California, at age 51.

Born on November 17, 1955, in Montgomery, Alabama, she was just 10 weeks old when the King family home was bombed as her father attended a boycott rally. Neither she nor her mother was injured when the device exploded on the front porch. She was seven when her father mentioned her and her siblings in his 1963 speech at the March on Washington: “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.” And in 1968, when she was 12 years old, her father was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee.

She went on to be named one of the Outstanding Young Women of America and served as a member of the Board of Directors of the Martin Luther King Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change, and was founding director of the King Center’s Cultural Affairs Program. Yolanda King had an insistent passion for social justice and equality and consistently stated, “We must keep reaching across the table, and in the tradition of Martin Luther King Jr. and Coretta Scott King, feed each other.”

King was so deeply moved by the story of her parents’ 1958 visit to Mills that, in a letter written in June 2006, she noted, “It always gives me such pleasure receiving photographs of my parents. These in particular brought back cherished memories of the two of them together. I especially enjoyed the one of my mother reading a document, while my father gazed at her with such pride and love; so much so, I have it prominently displayed in my home.” Along with four photographs from her parents’ visit here in 1958 presented by the College, the Women’s Leadership Institute also presented King with a memory book signed by students, faculty, staff, and alumnae in honor of her mother.

In reflecting on King’s visit to Mills, AAMC Executive Director Sheryl Bize Boutte ’73 noted, “I met Yolanda King during her visit to Mills. When she took my hand in hers I immediately felt her strong sense of loss. As one who also lost her mother way too soon, this was a wordless connection, deeply felt, mutually known. Underneath, I felt her quest for resolution, a way to erase the ‘why’ from her expression, her passion for finding the answers and sharing them with all of us, and her uncompromised beauty and strength. In those few precious moments, she left her imprint on my soul.”

The power of King’s work, and that of her parents, will continue to sow seeds and embolden brave hearts to get us to the refrain “We have overcome.”

 
Daphne Muse
Director, Women's Leadership Institute