(Elias Irizarry, Headline USA) Like many Americans, Alveda King was shocked to hear the news that President Donald Trump had been the victim of an assassination attempt at a rally in Butler, Pa., on July 13.
King, who runs her own Atlanta-based ministry and chairs the Center for the American Dream at the Trump-affiliated America First Policy Institute, issued a public statement calling on the nation to “commit itself to prayer, forgiveness, nonviolence and unity.”
However, as the niece of Martin Luther King Jr., the 73-year-old pro-life activist said the political attack also resonated on a deeply personal level, in an exclusive phone interview Friday with Headline USA.
She said she heard the news about Trump while riding on a bus with other women returning from an event. At first, she didn’t believe it was true.
The shock, however, also flooded her with memories of her uncle’s 1968 assassination in Memphis, Tenn.—as well as other personal tragedies that she endured in the tumultuous years that followed.
As the the nation grieved its civil rights heroes, King privately grieved the loss of several close family members.
She was 17 years old when her uncle died. At 18, her own father, the Rev. A.D. King, was found dead in his backyard swimming pool. Although the cause was listed as accidental drowning, his daughter remains convinced there was foul play involved.
“My dad had been choked and thrown in the swimming pool,” King said. “… So I remember those moments, and I remember praying for the man who took his life.”
When King was 23 years old, her grandmother, Alberta Williams King, was shot and killed inside the historic Ebenezer Baptist Church by a radical Black Hebrew Israelite who had targeted her for her Christian faith and symbolic importance to the civil-rights movement.
Once again, King’s initial reaction was to turn her anger into prayer, and she preached for others to do the same.
She recalled being a trained youth organizer for the civil-rights movement in the ’60s, when the political climate was filled with tension and rife with acts of political violence—including the assassinations of John F. Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy and Malcolm X.
When asked if the United States was potentially heading into a similar time of instability and what could be done to prevent it, she responded that we must pray, saying that she always “prays for the seat,” regardless of who happens to be sitting in it.
King, who once served as a Democrat in the Georgia legislature before losing a hotly contested primary to serve in the U.S. House of Representatives, now focuses more on her Christian values than her political ones.
She said she believed that President Joe Biden wanted to bring unity to America but had failed to do so.
“I really believe President Biden, like every other president who has ever been elected to the United States of America, and any politician—as I was elected to office twice myself, had many victories and many disappointments—I would like to believe he had desired to be a unifying President,” King said
As the current chair of the AFPI’s Center for the American Dream, King’s mission is focused on promoting “two-parent households, parental rights, hospital price transparency, fighting retail theft, educational freedom, occupational license reform, and small business success,” according to its website.
Additionally, King is a fervent advocate for protecting unborn children, having accused institutions such as Planned Parenthood of discriminately targeting African–American communities and profiting from the deaths of African–American babies.
In 2018, King was nominated by Trump to be a member of the Frederick Douglass Bicentennial Commission, which sought to honor the 200th anniversary of the great abolitionist leader’s birth.
Previous to that, she served under President George W. Bush. If Trump is re-elected, King said she would be ready to serve in whatever capacity is needed.
“I’m available to serve God and to serve America,” King said. “If I’m told there’s a need for me, I’d be happy to serve.”
Follow Elias Irizarry at twitter.com/eliasforsc.
