Dr. Alveda King opens up about family, lessons from her uncle MLK

June 04, 2014

Writer

On tonight's The Glenn Beck Program, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s niece Alveda King joined Glenn to discuss her new book and what lessons of MLK we should be concentrating on and utilizing right now.

Glenn: There is a reason that everything in life happens, and there is a reason that I met Alveda King. And I don’t think that we have fully explored that entirely yet. I think there’s much more work to do together, but I think of you all the time. And I thank my Heavenly Father for having the opportunity to meet you. You’re a remarkable woman.

Dr. King: I feel the same way about, you know, you and your wife. And you said that…many things that you say and do touch me, but leave your bedroom door open and let your children walk by and see the husband and the wife on their knees praying aloud to God. See, my daddy and my mother used to do that, and I mention that in that book.

Glenn: And by the way, the name of the book is King Rules. Get the book.

Dr. King: And I said gosh, Glenn has a revelation, and that’s part of family, serving that family and serving your children and protecting them. And that’s why we were never afraid. I bet your children are okay because they see you and your wife praying together. No matter how bad things get, if they see that, they’re okay. I mean, somebody might threaten your daddy or they may be concerned when you go to work, I know, but they know you’re praying, and they’re going to be okay.

Glenn: How do you, because you talk about the family, and I want to get to the tweets here at the end because I think this is very wise, but how do you in today’s world…family was different. I think the world has flipped to where, I mean, woe unto him, good is bad, bad is good now, where we had an underlying at least in our own communities, whites and blacks, bad, you know, the white community, bad towards the black community, but each of our own communities were good, I think. It was when we get into race relations. But the black community was strong, had God. Much of the white community, strong, had God. We’re walking around with no God at all or man is God.

Dr. King: Home and family were a sanctuary, and we can get back to that, and I’m beginning to believe that if we just teach that and model that. And so family, wherein whatever that nuclear unit looks like. Now, we have blended families and various models of the family, but to come back and love and respect, not challenging, not fighting.

Even in my own family, we’ve had differences, but there has been a cease-fire. We are beginning to get together. I went to my cousin’s baby’s birthday party the other day and took my granddaughter, my daughters. So you have to have a cease-fire. No matter what the conflict is, come back to 1 Corinthians 13, love never fails. Call a cease-fire, no matter where you are today, if it’s race relations, family relations, marital relations, domestic, cease-fire. Come back to love.

Glenn: In your book, the end, you start doing tweets.

Dr. King: I did.

Glenn: Yeah, and these are tweets that if Martin Luther could tweet, you think he would tweet these.

Dr. King: I believe he would, and you know, I slipped some of granddaddy’s in there, my daddy, A.D., my mama. But many of them you’ll recognize from Martin but not only him. But uncle M.L. was a contemporary man even in his day, and so he and his brother, A.D., liked Star Trek, believe it or not, in the 60s before they died.

Glenn: I can’t imagine those two watching Star Trek.

Dr. King: They really did. Martin Luther King met Nichelle Nichols and told her don’t leave Star Trek, you’re a Negro woman, you’re making a positive image, keep the job. Yes, he did tell her that. Hercules, Batman in its rudimentary days.

Glenn: That is hysterical.

Dr. King: Yeah, that’s the truth.

Glenn: Let me just give, “God, help us to believe we were created for that which is noble and good; help us to live in the light of Your great calling and destiny.” We have a real problem with that.

Dr. King: One hundred-forty characters.

Glenn: “Lord, help me to accept my tools, however dull they are; and then help me to do Your will with these tools.” Explain that.

Dr. King: I saw something in your monologue today, and you were saying okay, everybody’s a genius, but don’t tell somebody to climb a tree, and they’re a fish. I’m paraphrasing, but you said something like that.

Glenn: Yeah.

Dr. King: So just because the fish can’t climb the tree doesn’t mean the fish can’t swim. So whatever tools you’re given, he said you could be a street sweeper or whatever but just be the most excellent of what you are. So take whatever tools you’re given, don’t be jealous of somebody else’s. I can’t walk in your shoes. I might look at you and say I wish I was Glenn Beck, but give me about five seconds of that, and I’d say take it back.

Glenn: Yeah.

Dr. King: Same thing with me.

Glenn: My parents used to say be careful what you wish for, but that is the same as be careful what you covet, because you don’t know.

Dr. King: You’re not prepared for it. You’re not designed for that. I’m designed to be me. You’re designed to be you. Be happy in that and grow. And there’s so much opportunity for everybody on the planet.

Glenn: Where do you go from here? What do you hope to accomplish with this book?

Dr. King: I’m 63 years old. It’s a how-to book. I want people to know what it’s like to grow up in the fishbowl, to grow up in the family of Martin Luther King, to expect to grow from the experiences of wearing a mantle. And when the world looks at that book or looks at Alveda King, remember that she wasn’t perfect, but she served the perfect God.

Glenn: I don’t know if anybody, I mean, you know, we see these images of people, and I don’t even know if it means anything anymore, you know? I don’t know if these images even, most people don’t even know what Abraham Lincoln did. And so I don’t know what those images mean, but we have a couple of problems: One, we’re self-hating egomaniacs. We’re just all about me, me, me, yet we claim that we can’t be perfect, we can’t be better than we are, we can’t be these great people. Then the other thing is we look at these icons –

Dr. King: And they’re not real, many of them. The image that they portray behind that –

Glenn: You lose the struggle.

Dr. King: Yeah, so let’s look for truth, and let’s look for reality. Let this honestly be the first day of the rest of our lives and let it be a good day to move forward, yeah.

Glenn: Alveda King, I love you.

Dr. King: I love you too, Glenn.

The case for mass deportation

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Unchecked illegal immigration into America may be the most dangerous issue our country faces today, and with every day it goes unsolved, the risk of a terrorist attack of 9/11 proportions only increases.

Despite the risk, we can't even touch the subject without the Left and the mainstream media having a meltdown. Even suggesting that the tide of undocumented immigrants may pose some sort of national problem will quickly get you labeled as a racist, stumping intelligent conversation before it can even begin. But as any right-minded Conservative will tell you, calls to close the border and deport the people who stole into our country have nothing to do with race.

In his most recent TV special, Glenn described in detail what sorts of dangers we have let into our countries, with facts and figures that prove that if we don't act soon we will be in deep trouble. Glenn made it clear: we need to conduct a mass deportation or risk being torn apart from within. Here are three reasons that make the case for mass deportations:

Islamic terror cells are forming in South America.

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Congressional testimony from the Committee on Homeland Security in 2011 revealed that Hugo Chavez held a "Secret Summit" involving the Supreme Leader of Hamas, the Chief of Operations for Hezbollah, and the Secretary General of Palestinian Islamic Jihad in Caracas, Venezuela. It is clear that ever since (and possibly before) there has been a Radical Islamic Terrorist presence in Venezuela. Right now there is an Iranian beachhead off the Venezuelan coast on Margarita Island, where the Iranian government is running criminal activities and recruiting and training Venezuelan gangs. These gangs have used our border crisis to infiltrate the U.S. The most infamous of these gangs, Tren de Aragua, has been declared a terrorist organization by the State of Texas.

Terrorist-backed gangs are smuggling in weapons and tearing through the country.

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What are these Iranian-trained and backed gangs doing in America? As you can imagine, nothing good. Just this year alone an estimated million rounds of ammunition, 1.2 million gun parts, 3,000 body armor vests, and thousands of pieces of other military paraphernalia have been smuggled across the border. On top of that, they have already taken over an apartment complex in Aurora, Colorado, and are now terrorizing the remaining residents.

It's noteworthy that the gang managed to move into the apartment in the first place because they received subsidies through an NGO that was assisting the Colorado asylum seekers program, using money given to the state by the Biden administration in 2021.

Gangs have attacked military bases.

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It hasn't stopped at apartment complexes either. A leak from the U.S. Army revealed that the gangs have launched probing attacks on military facilities within the U.S. Members have been sighted taking surveillance photos of Lackland Air Force Base, as well as firing multiple shots into the facility. Another military base in Texas, Fort Sam Houston, caught a gang member attempting to gain access to the facility. This coincides with suspicious activity documented within the Permian Basin, the largest oil field in the U.S.

They are smuggling in vast quantities of military equipment, probing and surveying military facilities and key energy locations, and taking over residential areas. What exactly is going on and why isn't the federal government taking it more seriously?

VP debate recap: A Vance victory

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This might have been the most consequential VP debate in recent memory.

For those of you who missed the debate, it was a decisive victory for J.D. Vance and the Trump-Vance team as a whole. Vance presented a calm, collected, and considerate side of the Republican party that compliments Trump and helps to make their platform more palatable. Meanwhile, Tim Walz had a lackluster, though certainly not catastrophic, night. He had a few embarrassing gaffes and came across as overly nervous, but like Vance, kept it civil.

Both VP candidates entered the stage as relative unknowns to most Americans, and by the end, both men had given an accurate representation of their characters. Here is a brief recap just in case you missed the debate:

J.D. Vance looked great

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Vance came out of the gate swinging, with a stellar opening statement that helped set the stage for the rest of the debate. He delivered a concise yet compelling recap of his life, which framed him as everything Walz claims to be: a relatable veteran from humble beginnings who earned his position through hard work and service. He then went on to deliver a clear and palatable defense of Trump's platform and mission while cooly drawing attention to the failures of the Biden-Harris administration.

Overall, J.D. Vance looked incredibly presidential. He presented himself not just as a capable vice president, but as a strong successor to Trump and as a valid replacement if anything should happen to the former president between now and the end of his hypothetical second term. Vance also successfully dispelled the notion that he is "weird" as Walz called him, and if anyone looked strange during the debate, it certainly wasnot Vance.

Tim Walz's gaffes

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While Tim Walz certainly didn't have an awful night, he did not stack up well against Vance. Walz had a major gaffe around halfway through the debate when asked to explain the change in his position on assault weapon bans. Walz then claimed that he had befriended school shooters during his time in office. While that was clearly not the intention of what he was saying, it was embarrassing nonetheless.

Another weak moment was when the moderators asked Walz to explain a claim he had made regarding being in Hong Kong during the infamous Tiananmen Square protest in 1989, which has since been proven false. Walz gave a long-winded, rambling answer about taking students to visit China and how Trump should have joined in on those trips, before being called out by the moderator for dodging the question.

Vance fact-checked the fact-checkers

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One of the conditions of the CBS debate was that the moderators would not fact-check the debaters live, but instead rely on after-the-matter fact-checking. But, CBS couldn't keep to its own rules. While Vance was describing the migrant crisis that has swelled during the Biden-Harris administration, one of the CBS moderators, Margaret Brennan, chimed in with a "fact check." She claimed that the Haitian migrants in Ohio have legal status, to which Vance clapped back by calling Brennan out for breaking the rules of the debate, then proceeded to correct her, explaining that they only had legal status due to overreach by the Biden-Harris administration.

Dockworker strike: Everything you need to know

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At midnight on September 30th, dockworkers across the East Coast went on strike, effectively cutting the country's import and export capabilities in half.

Don't go out and panic buy a pallet of toilet paper and instant ramen just yet. It's going to take some time for the full effects of the strike to be felt and hopefully, the strike will be good and over by then. But there are no guarantees, and this election cycle could get significantly more insane as we draw near to the election. And even if the strike is settled quickly, it shows growing cracks in our infrastructure and industrial capacity that needs to be addressed if America wants to maintain its global dominance.

Here is everything you need to know about the dockworker strike:

What do the dockworkers want?

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As with most strikes, pay is the driving factor behind this situation the country now finds itself in. The longshoremen want more pay, and with rising inflation who can blame them? After all, working the docks is hard and dangerous business, and fair compensation only seems... fair. But when you compare the wage of a dockworker, which is around $100,000 to $200,00 a year to the average income in America of $56,000, suddenly they seem significantly less sympathetic.

How much money are they asking for? For most Americans, a three percent raise is considered high, but the unions are asking up to 15 percent, depending on location. On top of that, they are asking for a 77 percent raise over the next six years. The West Coast dock workers recently made off with a 36 percent raise and were considered lucky. These increases in costs are just going to be transferred to the end consumer, and we'll likely see a jump in prices if these terms are accepted.

The other major ticket item is protection against automation. Autonomous ports are quickly becoming a reality, with major ports in China that are capable of handling vast amounts of cargo being run by a single office, not an army of dock workers. Naturally, the longshoremen are concerned that their jobs are at risk of being replaced by machines that can work harder, longer, for cheaper, and without risk of injury.

How will it affect Americans?

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Don't panic yet!

It is going to take some time for consumers to feel the effects of the strike and it is possible that a resolution could happen at any time.

Week one should be pretty much business as usual. It might be a good idea to stock up on fruit and other perishables, but there is no need to go COVID-lockdown-crazy yet.

Week two is when you'll first start feeling the pinch. Fresh fruits and veggies will become scarce, along with other imported goods like shoes, toys, and TVs. Prices will start to creep up as the shelves will start to look a little sparse. The supply of tools, lumber, and other hardware materials will also begin to dry up.

By week three, the cracks in the system will really start to show. Entire industries will begin to slow down, or even stop. Factory workers will get furloughed and sent home without pay. Stores will have to ration items, prices will be sky-high, and online orders will come to a standstill. At this point, the strike will have escalated into a full-blown crisis, and even if it was resolved immediately, it would still take weeks to restore everything to working order.

At the four-week mark, the situation will have developed into a national security crisis, and as Glenn describes, a poly-crisis. Small business will be closing their doors, entire brands will be out of stock, and everything that remains will be so expensive it is unaffordable. By this point, the holiday season will be drawing near and there will be a rush on any sort of gift or decor items left. At this point, irreparable damage to our economy will have occurred and it will be months if not years before it can be mended.

While that sounds bleak, with the election just around the corner, it seems unlikely that the Biden-Harris administration will let it get that bad. That being said, their administration has not been characterized by good decision-making and reasonable policy, so there are no guarantees.

What can be done?

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The big question is "Why hasn't Biden already done something?"

President Biden, who ran on the image of a blue-collar, union-worker, has been uncharacteristically absent from the issue. Despite his earlier involvement in a train strike, Biden has declared that involvement in union fights is not a presidential issue unless it getsreally bad.

So where's the line? At what point will he step in? He has to understand that an economic crisis right before the election will reflect poorly on Kamala.

Join Glenn TONIGHT for BlazeTV's exclusive VP debate coverage!

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Join Glenntonight for Vice Presidential debate coverage you do not want to miss!

Tonight is the first (and only) Vice Presidential debate, and it will be hosted by CBS News. But don't be reliant on CBS News or any other mainstream media channel for their biased coverage. Join the BlazeTV live stream tonight to get the uncensored truth alongside top-quality commentary from Glenn and the rest of the world-class panel.

Glenn is joined by Megyn Kelly, Liz Wheeler, Allie Beth Stuckey, Steve Deace, Jill Savage, Dave Landau, and more to cover the CBS News Vice Presidential Debate. Blaze Media subscribers gain access to live chat with the fantastic panel of hosts! If you subscribe today by visiting BlazeTV.com/debate you will get $40 off of your annual subscription with code DEBATE. This is the largest discount ever offered, so take advantage NOW!

See you TONIGHT at 8 PM ET for an event you do NOT want to miss it!

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