Bernice King, the youngest child of civil rights leaders Martin Luther King Jr. and Coretta Scott King, is setting the record straight after Sen. Ted Cruz took to social media and called the NAACP’S travel advisory “bizarre” and “utterly dishonest.”
The NAACP issued the travel advisory, warning Black people to steer clear of traveling to Florida as a direct response
to Gov. Ron DeSantis’s efforts to eliminate African American history and programs implementing diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). “Florida is openly hostile toward African Americans, people of color and LGBTQ+ individuals,” the NAACP said in a press statement released on May 20. “Before traveling to Florida, please understand that the state of Florida devalues and marginalizes the contributions of, and the challenges faced by African Americans and other communities of color.” Cruz tweeted his perspective on the NAACP’S warning, saying, “Today, Dr. King would be ashamed of how profoundly they’ve lost their way,” insinuating today’s leaders are not upholding the “good” that NAACP leaders in the 1950s and 1960s did.“What my father would be deeply concerned about is the harmful, discriminatory legislation in Florida,” King responded to Cruz’s statement, attaching a photo of her father.
“Under the leadership of Governor Desantis, the state of Florida has become hostile to Black Americans and in direct conflict with the democratic ideals that our union was founded upon,” NAACP President & CEO Derrick Johnson wrote in the release. “He should know that democracy will prevail because its defenders are prepared to stand up and fight. We’re not backing down, and we encourage our allies to join us in the battle for the soul of our nation.”
The NAACP calls for supporters of the effort to visit the NAACP website and join forces to “defeat the regressive policies of this Governor and this state legislature.”
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