Guarding a Legacy with Dr. Alveda King

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. not only inspired a dream, but he created a legacy that continues in the King family today. Dr. Alveda King is guarding that legacy for this generation amid turbulent times. Join the conversation as Dr. King and Teresa Janzen discuss issues of life and legacy.

Guest Bio:

About Alveda King:  Alveda C. King, PhD, serves as Chair of the America First Policy Institute’s Center for the American Dream. She is the daughter of the late slain civil rights activist Rev. A. D. King and the niece of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., as well as a Christian evangelist; graduate of Aidan University; and is founder of SPEAK FOR LIFE, and ALVEDA KING MINISTRIES (www.alvedaking.com). Dr. King is also an acclaimed author, Fox News Channel contributor, Fox Nation host, NEWSMAX blog contributor, twice elected to GA State House, past presidential appointee, 2021 recipient of the Presidential Lifetime Achievement Award, and is a film and music industry veteran.

Find more resources at: https://alvedaking.com

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Transcript

0:03

Welcome to the Radical Abundance Podcast. I'm your host Teresa Janzen, and today I have a special guest. I know you've heard of her before, but Dr. Alveda King is here in the Radical Abundance Studio. Welcome Dr. King to radical abundance. Good morning, Teresa and. name of your show, Radical Abundance. That is just absolutely marvelous, and to have that, of course we know it doesn't necessarily come easy, but the rewards are just marvelous. Absolutely. We're all about living life full and free, and I know that you are part of a big legacy of that theme ideology. So I wanna share with the audience your, , bio, because I don't know that everyone knows everything that you've been involved in, , here's the official Dr. Alveda King bio. It says Alveda King is a PhD. She serves as the Chair of the America First Policy Institute Center for the American Dream. She is the daughter of the late slain civil rights activist, Reverend Ad King and the niece of the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. As well as a Christian evangelist graduate of Aidan University and is the founder of Speak For Life and Alveda King Ministries. She's also an acclaimed author, Fox News Channel contributor, Fox Nation host Newsmax blog contributor. Twice elected to the Georgia State House passed presidential appointee and the 2021 recipient of the Presidential Lifetime Achievement Award. And that is obvious as to why you have received that. And also a veteran of the film and music industry. And you know what? I didn't even know about your history. Within the music in industry until I saw your cd, your Christmas CD out. So I learned something new about you and I'm delighted to have you on the Radical Abundance Podcast. Well, thank you. I first wrote my first song in 1974, let Freedom Ring, and it goes on to say, thank God that King had a dream. And I, I wrote it to remind us not to idolize human beings, but when people serve God, that's notable so that my first song was about my uncle Reverend, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. I've written mostly inspirational songs, but with one of my sons, we recorded some pop music, and then more recently, another one of my sons. Wrote a song, paths of Righteousness outta Psalms 23. So I write, I sing, I record, I do films as well. And most people don't know that about me. So thank you for mentioning that. I think that's amazing and I love Christmas albums I do wanna get into exactly what you were just talking about, because I imagine that being a relative to such a famous person like Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Has benefits. It gives you a platform for sure, which you have taken advantage of, and I'm glad that you have. But it also, I'm sure can be a challenge. Has that been your experience or has it always been just a good thing to have that legacy that you can come after and follow. I am a guardian of the King family legacy. Martin Luther the King Jr. Was born into our family, the most famous member of our family. But we have been Christians, people who love the Lord for many, many generations now. And the way that I became a guardian. In every generation you have the guardian kind of personalities. My grandmother, Alberta King, who was shot playing the organ in 1974 in Atlanta, Georgia, on a Sunday playing the Lord's Prayer, but she was the photographer, the recorder. The oral historian and all of that., in my generation, we have four documentaries now that I am participating in that talk about the King Family legacy. So we are Christians. Love the Lord. Perfect. Absolutely not Jesus Christ. our Lord and savior is the perfect one. And even the pro-life stance that we have, my grandfather convinced my mother not to abort me in 1950. I had secret abortions during my young life, but I was gonna abort another child in the seventies. And my granddaddy said, no, no, that's a, that's a grandson. No. And so I, we are a Christian family. We love humanity. One blood, one human race, not separate races, different ethnicities. So that's kind of the legacy that I proclaim as a member of the family of Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. My dad, Reverend A. D. King, his brother was a very strong civil rights leader. My mother today, Naomi King, still is.. Well, that's a really strong family legacy, and you have certainly used that for good and have brought your own voice and own, message to the conversation about civil rights. And I know that a real big thing for you is the pro-life issue. Tell me why is that what you really champion? Well, as I look back to time that I was conceived in 1950 by my parents, God had a plan and, and that's in the Bible too. God says to, I know the plans I have. For you. They're not to hurt you, but to bless you. Okay? So I, God had a plan for my life that I would be rescued from abortion. I would experience abortion. I would have my own abortions and experience the pain and suffering of that and the reality that two of my children died by abortion and one by miscarriage because my body had been harmed by the abortions. Mm-hmm.. And then I would be redeemed like the woman at the well, and the woman caught in the act. And I would repent and become a voice for life. And I know one of my uncle's quotes, he said, the Negro cannot win if he's willing to sacrifice the futures of his children for immediate personal comfort and safety. Now, abortion was not legal. in America, across America like it is today during his lifetime. But that was one of his quotes, and he said, injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. So after I repented from all my sins and became a born again Christian in the early 1980s, I became a voice for life, and I still am today. So the sanctity of life, and I actually had what many people would call a nervous breakdown in the, mid, Seventies when I almost aborted another one of my children. I had had two abortions and a miscarriage was divorced and planned Parenthood abortion was now with Roe v. Wade Legal in America. And I was gonna abort a child in the mid seventies. My granddaddy said, no, that's a, that's a grandchild. And I saw an ultrasound. It was, it was called a sonogram back then. And I realized, I saw that little head, that little body form, that little beating heart, and I said, Oh my God, they lied. That's a baby. And I had to get myself together. I bore that child. God healed my body. I have six living children and right now, 11 grandchildren are looking for great-grandchildren. One of my grandsons got married. So I became a voice for life with the Bible, understanding that I'm supposed to choose life, realizing I was lied to, and that those were people and hoping to see them in heaven again. So that's why the pro-life movement. It is personal to me. It helped me to produce I was an executive producer on the film Roe v. Wade. I've done a lot of documentaries for life. I have an organization Speak for Life. Well, I do see you have a real personal connection to that issue. And then also with the legacy of civil rights. I've heard people say that abortion is not just an issue of life. And I know we talked to, you already mentioned there's one race, and I completely agree with you. But people also see, and I think you also say that this issue of pro-life, they seem to target. People of color, specifically African Americans, has that been your experience? No. You know that people of color term or biracial and all of that, those are socially politically correct kind of terms. Cause everybody has color. I know we all have color, but that's okay. I I understand. Cause I have to, it's hard to have a conversation without the language. You know, what is the, how can we find the, a good language to use? I agree with you. completely just say, Hey, will you say the black community, the Latino community, the Caucasian community, Uhhuh. And we look at it as villages and communities and ethnicity rather than separating us racially. Cause there's only one. Blood in one race. So absolutely just substitute or add the word community. When you talk about ethnicities, and I'm gonna answer your question, but during the Christmas holiday, I posted the brown skin nativity characters. And boy did that start a conversation. People, one man said I think it was a man, and he said well, something's wrong with your art. I said, what's wrong? He says, well, Jesus was Hebrew. I said, yeah, and I'm trying to get as close to that reddish brown complexion that he would've had he and his parents, cuz with blind hair and blue eyes., if they hid in Egypt, which is in Africa, at the time, they would've stood out, wouldn't they? And the, and there's one man, it might cause women and men, different people were answering, but somebody said, oh, I thought he was Latino. I'm sorry. And so I'm just laughing. And you'll see our renditions of the nativity characters as Asian, Latino, Caucasian African. All types of things, but we want to begin to understand that it is not skin color that defines a human race. Those are ethnicities. Absolutely. Americans tend to categorize people. I don't know why, but we, they tend to categorize people on what they can see, what they visualize. There you go with light skin, dark skin. I'm say, what are you guys talking about? Come great, come on now. Cuz I'm part African, I'm part Irish and native American. Cuz we, I did all that DNA testing and thing. Uhhuh . Me too. I'm human. We're all human, right? So that's uh, the basis of some of our arguments., it's because we will not understand that and we just add the, I use the word community rather than that, and that will help. And I have a book with Ginger Howard. We are not colorblind. If you've not read that, please read that one too. I will. And I'll put a link to that one in the show notes so that other people can pick that up because I haven't read it. So thank you for really helping me with that whole conversation. That's great. And it's my understanding though, that Planned Parenthood. has put a lot of their clinics in traditionally black communities. What you have found too, unfortunately, Margaret Sanger was a eugenicist and a racist thinking that there was a superior Arian race. She, along with Charles Darwin and some others, and so what they wanted to do was to minimize what they called the other racists as inferior people. And so Margaret Sanger and Planned Parenthood. Finally, right before Roe v. Wade was sent back to the States they found, they admitted that Margaret Sanger really was a racist. She had spoken to the Ku Klux Klan, for example, the women of the Klan and all of that. So with that error, Trying to come up with a superior race. They targeted the black communities of America and finally around the world with the abortion clinics finally, but initially with the being the birth control league before they became Planned Parenthood, so they had free tubal lactations for the women free vasectomy. So the men there was a Tuskegee project to see how many blacks you could kill by. Giving the men's syphilis and giving placebo instead of real medicine. They came up with many ways to minimize what they call the inferior groups of people. And she did say something like, colored people are like weeds, but we don't want to, word to get out that we are trying to exterminate 'em. You know? So these kinds of issues, it were there by the error of thinking that by skin color we could come up with superior races.. . And you know, the real tragedy the world of so many gifts and talents that we won't know so many voices that we won't hear, and so many stories that won't be lived. And that is tragic. And I think that they try to present it as a socioeconomic. Situation. So we want to help your race, we wanna help your people, don't have so many babies. And that's the way they designed that. But that was absolutely terrible. Mm Yeah. It's a lie dressed up in, something that looks like benevolence or a gift and it's absolutely not where can people really connect with this issue if they wanna find out more about this? Where, what are some of the resources other than you've mentioned one book. That's fabulous. What other resources do you have for people if you come to alveda king.com? I have a, a store. That has, I've written over 30 books on many subjects, but most of them touch on the issues of life, the sanctity of life from the womb to the tomb to into eternity. So that's a good place to start there at the store. And I'm not just promote this cuz I need you to buy my products or anything like that, but there's a lot of information there. And civil rights for the unborn. I was at Priest for Life for 16 years and I think civil rights for the unborn. Page is still there. Civil rights for the unborn.org or civil rights for the unborn.com Speak for Life is my own pro-life ministry and it is developing, even now. It just started in 2021 and so there, but alveda king.com, there are articles, there's information and it's. Not just pro-life for let's save the babies in the womb. We definitely have to do that, but from the womb to the tomb into eternity. So if you talk to alveda king.com, that's a good place to start. I'm really glad that you mentioned that because I think there is a, A little bit of a rising issue coming up about the, the elderly. Mm-hmm.. And you mentioned the womb to the tomb and this idea of euthanasia and euthanasia being a kindness. What is your position on that? I haven't heard, well, I'll use my own mother as an example, a few years ago, mom's 91 now.. I think she was in her seventies. That means I would've been in my fifties. And she had a laceration on her leg and it was very painful. It wouldn't heal. We get to the hospital, but they put her on morphine and things like that and they says, well, let's, we can just make her comfortable and ease her pain. And they were gonna try to really euthanize her cause they just said that she wasn't gonna really be able to live a productive life. And now mom's 91. Wow. So I was encouraged to kinda euthanize her and get her into hospice and we just, no, and, and it was really not even funny, but one of my daughters at the time said, let's get up out of here. And she went by the drugstore. She bought some neosporin and some peroxide, poured the peroxide on the wound and kept the neosporin. And five days later the things started to, to dry up and stop hurting., amazing. courage to get her my mother into hospice and keep her as comfortable as possible. And it just simple first aid care, basic care that at that time now there are more serious cases. I understand that I'm not making light, but there is value in every human life, in every stage of life. And I read about a couple recently who had been very pro-life and she had a. Difficult pregnancy and she and her husband are now spokespersons for abortion. Cuz if I had a boy, now they're saying that if they had had the abortion, the baby wouldn't have suffered through that experience, life experience, and they wouldn't have and this, that and the other. But abortion honestly doesn't solve problems. It just gives us other problems. It really does. And so some people will say, well, I had one that didn't bother me. And then we found one lady that said that for many years, and she was in a nursing home and she was in a fetal position and she was unconsolable and a nurse whispered in her ear, ma'am, have you ever had an abortion? And the lady started to tremble it, almost like seizures. And she was shaking and everything and she began to unbend herself. And yes, and the nurse was able to console her, pray with her, assure her that she would see her child again. And that lady came outta that fetal comatose state. So, it took her all those years to put the two together. And so sometimes, cuz you know, in initially I thought I was fine until I really, that born again experience. So from the seventies until the early eighties, I thought I was okay. I had two abortions and a miscarriages and I was what I called happy go lucky. So I, it is just usually that's denial when people say, oh, it was great. I'm glad I did it. Let's celebrate the abortion. No. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. I do know, and I really appreciate you being so open and honest about your own past to history with abortion because it lets people know this isn't coming from a place of, of. Piety or yourself, anything else just says, no, it's not. Yeah, it's a, it's a real place of love and caring. I can hear that in your voice and a place of humility too. Thank you. You know, there's no judgment here. There's hope, there's an encouragement to be strong and courageous. Yes, yes, yes. Yeah. I really appreciate that. I know our time really is up, so I'm gonna just give you the mic for this last little bit. You tell us whatever message you think the radical abundance needs to hear today. I want you to join Teresa her family, her audience says, And get as much information out. Ask God to bless our perspectives where we are not negative or bitter or afraid. Please, fear not. And if you have an opportunity to do a blog or a podcast yourself as you're listening, please do it. And you says, well, I don't know so many people. There might be one person waiting to hear from you. So support Teresa. Support Alveda. Support all of us and join us. Add your voice, speak for life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness from the womb to the tomb into eternity. In Jesus' name, amen. Thank you, Dr. King for joining us on radical Abundance, and I wish you a radically abundant day. You too. Thank you.