From the Seattle Times

The Rev. Bernice King has been chosen as the first woman to head the civil rights organization co-founded by her father, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.

The Southern Christian Leadership Conference announced her election as its eighth president Friday morning. Interim President Byron Clay called King and said she accepted the position.

I find this disturbing. King has made a name for herself as a strong opponent of gay rights which resulted in her estrangement from her mother, Coretta Scott King, and her sister, Yolanda King, both outspoken supporters of equal rights for all. Her homophobia is also a slap against the SCLC’s co-founder, the openly gay Bayard Rustin, who counseled Dr. King on non-violent resistance and was instrumental in organizing the March On Washington in 1963.

(More below the fold- Louise)  From CNN:

Bernice King, the youngest child of slain civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., has been elected president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, a spokeswoman for the group said Friday.

King, 46, was elected as the SCLC’s first female president, said Renee Richardson.

“It is a destiny call,” she told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution last week. “It is part of my father and mother’s legacy and a continuation of the legacy he started in the ’50s and ’60s through this organization. I believe that the hand of God is leading me.”

From BBC:

Ms King said her election would be a continuation of her father’s legacy.

She beat Wendell Griffin, the first black lawyer to work for a major Arkansas law firm, to the post.

After its foundation in 1957, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) was for years one of the country’s most influential civil rights groups with a reputation for organising effective non-violent direct-action protests.

Under Martin Luther King’s leadership, the group played a key role in the passing of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which banned racial segregation.

In recent years, however, the organisation has suffered from infighting – with some members in Florida threatening to secede – and controversy brewing over the president of a branch in California backing gay marriage.

She will be the third member of the King family to preside over the SCLC. Her brother, Martin Luther King III, was president from 1998 to 2003.