MLK Daughter to Surrender Bible, Nobel Peace Prize Medal

  Bernice King is scheduled to turn over the Bible and medal Monday under the order of Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney. His court will control the keys to a safe deposit box holding the items until a trial to decide whether King’s two brothers can sell them.

Today Bernice King appealed again to her brothers not to sell. She asked for the board of directors of Dr. King’s estate to take another vote on the issue. King and her brothers, Dexter and Martin Luther King, III, are the sole board members.

She told a gathering at Ebenezer Baptist Church, “I call for a new vote, because it would take all three of us to heal and reconcile as a family, it only takes one of my brothers to have a change of heart and stand with me and the many concerned beneficiaries of the King legacy and the civil rights movement.”

At some points, King’s news conference, the second in a month, resembled a church service. Held in the sanctuary where her father once preached, King called on supporters to help her make her case. Among them was Elizabeth Omilami, daughter of late civil rights activist Hosea Williams.

In a rousing speech, Omilami compared Dr. King’s Bible and Nobel medal to the icons of religions and cultures, saying, “When they are at the museum, and they see the Jewish Torah, do you think it would have been sold? And they’re looking at it in the case, and they say ‘Mama, where is all the righteous elements of the African American movement?’ The case is empty.”

Dexter King and Martin Luther King, III, have made no public comment on their plans nor have they revealed the name of any potential buyers for the items.

The trial in the lawsuit is set to begin September 29, 2014.