Alveda King, the niece of slain civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr., told the audience at the Massachusetts Family Institute's annual banquet last Friday that school choice is the most important civil rights issue of the day.

Opening her speech with a hymn, and bearing witness to the strength she draws from God, King told the audience that families needed the "empowerment" that comes with school choice.

She challenged Massachusetts to lead the way in promoting excellence in education as it had in the 1850s, instead of thwarting the dream of families to secure the best education for their children.

Recalling George Wallace swearing that black children would not be let into public schools in the 1960s, King noted that today Massachusetts bureaucrats say, "We are not going to let these children out."

It is not a money issue, she said.  Washington DC public schools spend over ten thousand dollars per student each year for poor quality schools, while parents can get excellent educations for their children for under $4000 a year.

This is exactly what President Clinton and other DC elites do for their children by sending them to private schools while poor blacks are trapped in public schools.

King also declared that "life is sacred" and that abortion is murder, and said that her uncle would never have supported the legalization of abortion.

She also denied that homosexuality is a "civil rights" issue.  It is an issue left to the individual and God, she said.  Homosexual "marriage" can never succeed, because God will not recognize it.  When the leader of the African-American gay community told King that homosexuality was "bondage," she urged him to remain open to the possibility of finding a way out of it.

King also stressed the irrelevance of racial identity.  "Look for 'race' in the Bible," she said.  "All you find is:  'Run the race with patience'."

Alveda King is the founder of the "King for America" campaign.  She was elected to the Georgia House of Representatives in 1978 and 1980, and is a teacher and the author of five books.
 

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