Glenn Beck got a lot of flak for his August 28 spiritual rally
at the Lincoln Memorial from some who alleged he was usurping the
memory of Martin Luther King’s iconic 1963 “I Have a Dream” speech
there.
But equally as noteworthy was a religious pro-abortion
coalition, including several Mainline denominations, which lashed
out at another speaker at the Beck Rally, King’s niece Alveda
King, for her pro-life advocacy.
The Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice (RCRC)
held a press conference in Washington on August 26 with several
African-American clergy seeking to discredit Alveda King as part of
a conservative effort to “hijack the civil rights movement for its
own political agenda,” according to Reverend Dr. Walter Fauntroy,
chief Washington, D.C. organizer of the 1963 March on
Washington.
While RCRC is comprised exclusively of nearly all-white
Mainline denominations and liberal activist groups, among them
Catholics for a Free Choice, the group has an extensive outreach to
African Americans through its National Black Church Initiative.
Among its programs has been the National Black Religious Summit on
Sexuality, held annually at Washington’s Howard University, and
which has tried subtly to promote pro-abortion themes in church
curricula and to liberalize church teaching about sexual
ethics.
King directs the African-American outreach for Priests for
Life and has spearheaded a campaign to raise awareness about
abortion’s impact on the black population. “The ‘Religious Right’
billboard campaign asserting that African American children are an
‘endangered species’ and Alveda King’s comparison of anti-abortion
activists to ‘Freedom Riders’ have sparked outrage in the African
American community,” charged RCRC President Carlton
Veazey.
RCRC was founded in 1973 by primarily white Mainline
Protestants to defend Roe v. Wade against Roman Catholic
and other pro-life religious voices. Unwilling to grant the
desirability of any restriction on abortion, RCRC over the years
has even defended the legality of partial-birth abortions and of
transporting minors across state lines for abortions. Agencies of
the United Methodist Church, Presbyterian Church (USA), United
Church of Christ, and the Episcopal Church are RCRC’s leading
members.
Responding to RCRC, King was unapologetic in defending her
pro-life views and participation in the Beck rally. “It is
absolutely ludicrous that abortion supporters would accuse a blood
relative of Dr. King of hijacking the King legacy. Uncle Martin and
my father, Rev. A. D. King were blood brothers,” King said in a
statement. “How can I hijack something that belongs to me? I am an
heir to the King Family legacy.” Not unreasonably, she
insisted: “I have a right to stand at the Lincoln Memorial on the
47th Anniversary of my Uncle’s ‘I Have A Dream’ speech.”
Dr. Timothy McDonald, Pastor of First Iconium Baptist
Church in Atlanta and a past member of the RCRC Board, insisted
that King was attempting to “rewrite history” and that the elder
King and his wife Coretta Scott King “supported family planning
services.”
But the younger King insisted: “The Dream has yet to be
realized.” And she asserted: “That Dream is in my genes and I carry
forward in the fight for equality and justice for all blacks,
including those in the womb.” King said that her father and uncle
gave their lives to ensure that the day would come when blacks
would be judged not by the color of their skin, but the content of
their character: “If they were here, I know they would stand with
me in this fight for the lives of those most vulnerable among
us.”
Priests for Life reports that 78 percent of Planned
Parenthood clinics are in minority communities. While blacks make
up 12 percent of the population they account for 35 percent of all
abortions in the United States. King and pro-life black clergy have
alleged that the disproportionate impact of abortion upon the black
community has been a targeted effort. Noting that 50 percent of
pregnancies within the black community end in abortion, these
leaders charge it is the result of campaigns originally instigated
by racially motivated eugenicists early in the 20th century.
Foremost among their examples is Margaret Sanger, founder of
Planned Parenthood, who wrote of eliminating “undesirable
populations.”
RCRC sought to refute the charge in a statement available
on its website from Jill Morrison, senior counsel in reproductive
health and rights at the National Women’s Law Center. She
characterized claims that abortion in the African-American
community amounts to genocide as an “attempt to infantilize,
dehumanize and objectify black women under the guise of protecting
the race.” Loretta Ross, national coordinator of SisterSong Women
of Color Reproductive Health Collective called claims of genocide
“racist, sexist and anti-Semitic” and an affront to the millions
who died in the Nazi Holocaust.
Several black pro-life leaders backed King in their
disagreement with RCRC. “More and more of Black Americans
understand the eugenics agenda of Planned Parenthood and other
abortion providers to control the black birth rate through
abortion. And because we understand, we are standing with Alveda
King in solidarity, continuing the fight for black life from its
earliest beginnings,” Catherine Davis of Georgia Right to Life told
LifeNews, a pro-life news service.
Although RCRC has several African-American officers,
including Veazey and RCRC Chairman Alton B. Pollard III, Dean of
Howard University School of Divinity, none of the historically
black denominations is affiliated with RCRC. Typically socially and
theologically conservative, especially compared to white Mainline
churches, most black churches are probably closer to Alveda King
than RCRC on abortion. Maybe this explains why RCRC is trying
to target black churches, and why Alveda King’s pro-life advocacy,
especially at the high profile Beck rally, so enraged groups like
RCRC.
