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1. When you see the commitment my parents exhibited… it was not for fame or fortune.
2. I have such strong memories of my Daddy.
3. I will never grow up. Everyone wants to tell me how to live my life.
4. My mother supported me from the beginning and never said you should be an activist or civil rights leader or minister.
5. Do you know what I think of when I remember him? I think: He was such a kid. He taught me how to swim when I was 4 and how to ride a bike. So when I think of Martin Luther King, I think of laughter. I think of the play and the fun.
6. As an artist and as a Black woman coming out of a background that emphasizes service, there are certain responsibilities that I must assume. I see these responsibilities not as a burden, but as an extension of what I am.
7. We’ve not reached the promised land. We’re still wandering around, bumping into each other in the wilderness of ignorance and hate. That is why the King holiday is so important.
8. Obviously, since 9/11, here in this country there has been a resurgence of fear and people feeling distrustful of other people that are different. And what we chose to do was to focus on people coming together, working across those barriers of race, of culture, of religion, and really finding a heart connection.
9. The best sermons are those that are lived.
10. Really just about the only remembrance I have from when I was very young is the way Daddy used to place me on the refrigerator and then say, ‘Jump!’ and I’d jump into his arms. It was so much fun for me that even when I got too large for it to happen, I still wanted to do it anyway!
11. Within the theater lies the power to stimulate and alter the hearts and minds of both the privileged and those who have too long been denied.
12. By the time I was 12, I had decided to be an artist.
13. One of my main reasons for going to college is to try to get a liberal arts background.
14. Given my belief that there is a divine purpose for my father’s life on this planet, given the way I was raised, it’s real hard to get angry. I get that from my daddy.
15. I was watching the news that day when the bulletin came on that my father had been shot. I prayed. I asked God, ‘Please don’t let my daddy die.’
16. Black youth, in general, have no understanding of our past. Young black people who don’t know who Martin Luther King Jr. was, don’t know nothin’.
17. As soon as people heard me speak, they would compare me to my father. My siblings had the same kind of pressure.
18. In life, I had to be prim and proper and poised — The King Daughter. But acting, I could be the zany, silly, sometimes foolish person that I am. I could let the raw edges show.
19. I feel that I’m very much in touch with my father’s spirit and presence. I feel it, sense it and take much energy and inspiration from that.
20. I found myself trying to be all things to all people. I felt a tremendous sense of responsibility and the pressure of expectation.