The oldest son of the late Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Coretta Scott King said his father would be greatly disappointed in the nation if he were still alive.
“My father always believed in the people of our nation. Certainly, he would be greatly disappointed in how we have chosen to conduct ourselves at this particular moment, but most particularly probably disappointed in the commander in chief, because the commander in chief is supposed to bring people together and not to bring people together to actually intercept your government,” Martin Luther King III told CNN’s Brianna Keilar on Monday, referring to President Donald Trump.
“He understood we are a United States of America, not a divided state of America, and he would be telling us we must turn to each other, not turn on each other,” said King, who spoke to CNN on the federal holiday honoring his father.
King is a global human rights leader and chairman of the board for the Drum Major Institute, a non-profit organization originally founded by King Jr. to drive social progress.
The son of the civil rights movement leader said he believes President-elect Joe Biden and his administration should lead the country in bringing people together and addressing the Covid-19 pandemic, police brutality and misconduct as well as climate change.
“We’re going to see a new air brought in,” he said.
But King noted it will take time for the country to move past what he called a “very difficult moment.”
“We will do better. We are much better than the behavior that we’ve seen exhibited over the last few days,” he said.
