‘He knew we had it in us’: Bernice King talks father Martin Luther King Jr.’s enduring ‘dream’

Bernice King's father knew, she said, that the days would come when the oppressed and marginalized would need words of reassurance to continue their struggle when he might not be around.

That, she said, was on the mind of her father, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., as he prepared to address more than 200,000 people at the historic March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom on Aug. 28, 1963.

“He knew there would be other days in the future, whether he was here or not, where we would be faced with some resistance,” she said in a conversation with USA TODAY in which she recited passages from and reflected on her father’s historic speech.

King revisited the speech, widely considered one of the greatest public orations of all time with its famous four words − "I have a dream" − ahead of the 60th anniversary of its delivery. She considered how portions of the address have been forgotten and its overall purpose muted, even as many of its themes and goals remain relevant today.

Bernice King, who was 5 when her father was assassinated, is now CEO of The Martin Luther King Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change in Atlanta. While people often say how much they love the “I Have A Dream” portion of her father’s speech that day, it’s important to consider his words in their entirety, she said.

King referred to a portion early in the speech in which her father compared the words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence to a promissory note "to which every American was to fall heir," meaning, he said, they would be "guaranteed the inalienable rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."

Instead, she said, her father compared the plight of Black Americans to having been given a check reading "insufficient funds."

“That’s what people need to understand, that my father spoke in so many challenging ways to us as a nation,” she said. “Because he wanted us to be our best self.”

Explore the series:MLK’s ‘I have a dream’ speech looms large 60 years later

‘He knew we had it in us’

Bernice King said her father’s "insufficient funds" metaphor, describing the state of unequal opportunity that Black people faced in 1963, was crucial because it set the tone for the rest of the address. The early 1960s were a time of strife and turmoil, when the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and the Fair Housing Act of 1968 were goals whose achievement yet remained in question.

“But he said ‘We have hope,’” she said. “And I still have that hope. ... He knew we had it in us. But we had to wake up to that and understand our responsibility to each other.”

King said her father’s words captured “that kind of restless energy in young people that we even see today − that we’re tired of waiting for these things to be manifested.” That similar issues of economic and racial inequality exist today defy characterizations of the march as “that was then, this is now” history, she said.

“A lot of similar conditions still exist,” she said, noting that event organizers had prepared a 10-point list of demands that in addition to civil rights legislation and desegregation of all public schools included a national minimum wage and federally funded job training and placement for all unemployed workers, Black or white.

“People always forget that this was part of a greater strategy,” she said.

It’s not about being colorblind

King also brought up the portion of her father's speech in which he said his dream included a time in which his children would be judged not "by the color of their skin but by the content of their character." She said people have often approached her and told her they side with her father, that they don’t see the color of other people’s skin. But that’s not what he meant, she said − what he meant is that laws and practices should not serve to subjugate one race to another.

“I’ve been trying to tell people,” she said, “if you’re going to fight for justice and right the wrongs of this society, use the example of Martin Luther King. He taught us how to be love.”

She said her father and mother, Coretta Scott King, had arrived late to Washington the night before her father delivered his historic speech, and they were up into the wee hours as he polished his address. Then, as was his custom, he let his wife read it over to get her input.

“She was so proud of him,” Bernice King said. “I don’t even think he understood that moment at a level she understood it. That’s why the work she did to help to institutionalize his work, his words and his contributions have been so important. Because without her we wouldn’t be talking about him like this today.”