Bernice King Blasts Donald Trump For Comparing Himself To MLK, Jr.

Bernice King has dedicated her life to preserving her father’s legacy. Martin Luther King, Jr. is among the most respected and revered men in American history. It’s understandable, then, that Bernice King would be offended by Donald Trump’s recent comments. The Presidential nominee likened himself to MLK, Jr. during a recent speech. Not only did he evoke the activist’s name, but he bragged about drawing a much bigger crowd than he did in the 1960s. Bernice King had plenty to say on the matter on August 9.

Donald Trump’s comments are worth unpacking for context. The former President not only put himself on the same level as MLK, but he did so while discussing the January 6 insurrection. “The biggest crowd I’ve ever spoken before was that day,” he told reporters. “If you look at Martin Luther King, when he did his speech, his great speech, and you look at ours. Same real estate, same everything. Same number of people, if not, we had more.” Americans were appalled by the parallel, especially given the context of the insurrection and Dr. King’s reputation for peaceful protests. The approaches of Trump and Dr. King are, for many, diametrically opposed.

Bernice King is one of the many. She took to Twitter to fact-check Donald Trump’s statement, and make sure her father’s reputation remained ironclad. She quote tweeted the clip in which Donald Trump said he drew a bigger crowd than Martin Luther King, Jr. and posted a photo of her father. “Absolutely not true,” Bernice King tweeted. “I really wish that people would stop using my father to support fallacy.” The facts are in King’s favor. Trump claimed that he drew “more people” than Dr. King, but in reality, he only drew an estimated 53,000 people. By comparison. Dr. King’s March on Washington brought 250,000 people together in 1963. Not only was the ex-President’s statement untrue, it wasn’t even close to being true.

This is not the first time Bernice King has criticized Donald Trump. In 2018, King spoke out against the President during a public event the Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta. She urged churchgoers to not be swayed by Trump’s rhetoric, or allow his views to shape the way they perceive American values. “[We] cannot allow the nations of the world to embrace the words that come from our president as a reflection of the true spirit of America,” she stated. “Our collective voice in this hour must always be louder than the one who sometimes does not reflect the legacy of my father.”