In an interview with theGrio, King’s daughter Bernice King says in the United States, “we don’t know how to deal with hate.”
On what would’ve been the 94th birthday of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., the civil rights icon who helped turn the tide on racial inequality in the United States and abroad, hate in America continues to dominate decades after his 1968 assassination.
According to data compiled by the extremism research center at California State University at San Bernardino, over the past four years hate crimes have continued to climb.
As reported by VOA News, “U.S. hate crimes have been on the rise in recent years, driven by factors ranging from a surge in anti-Asian sentiments during the COVID-19 pandemic to anti-Black animus in reaction to racial justice protests that broke out across America in 2020 after the killing of African American George Floyd while in police custody.”
“I feel that not all, but many whites, feel threatened,” Dr. Amos Brown, a pastor who sits on the NAACP’s National Board of Directors, tells theGrio. “People tend to hate each other because they fear each other; they fear each other because they do not know each other.”
Brown was one of eight students taught by King at Morehouse College from 1961 to 1962. He is one of only two surviving members of the small social philosophy class.
Brown offers a simple solution to the modern rise in hate in America: “We need to get to know each other, and particularly the majority needs to understand that we are human.”
Civil rights leader Al Sharpton tells theGrio, “unless we aggressively work along with the [Assistant] Attorney General [for Civil Rights] Kristen Clarke and [Associate Attorney General] Vanita Gupta and prosecute people, and back them up, we’re going to continue to see it happen.”

News