Yolanda King

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'.

Through the arts, you can impact upon people's attitudes, values, and understandings.

I have such strong memories of my Daddy.

A feeling of self worth is the best accomplishment we can foster in our prisons.

At 16, I went to Smith College in Massachusetts and that was right after the peak of the civil-rights movement and all the rest. It was an era when students were making demands and many black students were closer to the teachings of Malcolm X, or what they thought were his teachings.

The civil rights movement was not a mirage… It was live and in living color.

My mother supported me from the beginning and never said you should be an activist or civil rights leader or minister.

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.

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.

Til I was about eight or nine, I had no awareness he was anybody special. Since all our friends were in the movement, I thought what Daddy did was natural. Everybody went to jail, right? Then, one day some kids at school called my daddy a jailbird, and it upset me. That was the beginning of my awareness.

My father was not really pleased when I told him of my choice to train as an actress, when he was with us in this dimension.

My father was bigger than life, an entity and everyone expected us, as his offspring, to be saintettes, these little carbon copies.