Yolanda King

I have such strong memories of my Daddy.

Somebody has always wanted me to speak as a voice of black America, but it has dawned on me that I can only speak for myself.

This is one of my favorite things to do, working with a symphonic accompaniment, because I don't sing - and this is as close as I will come to singing.

I feel that I'm very much in touch with my father's spirit and presence. I feel it, sense it and take much energy and inspiration from that.

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.

I tease sometimes and say that the King holiday is a 20th-century miracle. Reagan even signed it, and he was completely opposed to the idea.

Obviously, since 9/11, here in this country there has been a resurgence of fear and people feeling distrustful of other people that are different. And what we chose to do was to focus on people coming together, working across those barriers of race, of culture, of religion, and really finding a heart connection.

What just resonates with me so strongly is my whole spirituality and the fact that we are, my belief that we are spiritual beings having a human experience.

I know that no matter what is said about Martin the King Jr., what he contributed, what he gave, what he meant, what he means all over this planet cannot be tarnished.

When you see the commitment my parents exhibited... it was not for fame or fortune.

The best sermons are those that are lived.

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

Really just about the only remembrance I have from when I was very young is the way Daddy used to place me on the refrigerator and then say, 'Jump!' and I'd jump into his arms. It was so much fun for me that even when I got too large for it to happen, I still wanted to do it anyway!

One of my main reasons for going to college is to try to get a liberal arts background.

My friends... feel there are not that many people they can really look up to. They feel people are so hypocritical and fake... But I do have some people I respect, a great number of people, and I'm sure my friends have.

When you say 'the man of the house,' the black woman has been the woman and the man of the house, because black men have so often had to spend all of their time and energy working and trying, at least, to give their families the basic needs. So black women, I find, are not really concerned about women's liberation.

I am an artist with very strong social and political concerns.

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

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.

By the time I was 12, I had decided to be an artist.

Broadway musicals like 'Ain't Misbehavin',' 'Eubie' and 'Bubblin' Brown Sugar' depict blacks having a light, wonderful time and that was just not so for blacks in the '20s and '30s.

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'.

I wrote my first play when I was eight. It was about a queen, and I - of course! - was the queen.

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.

In life, I had to be prim and proper and poised - The King Daughter. But acting, I could be the zany, silly, sometimes foolish person that I am. I could let the raw edges show.