YOLANDA KING

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

Given my belief that there is a divine purpose for my father's life on this planet, given the way I was raised, it's real hard to get angry. I get that from my daddy.

I found myself trying to be all things to all people. I felt a tremendous sense of responsibility and the pressure of expectation.

Within the theater lies the power to stimulate and alter the hearts and minds of both the privileged and those who have too long been denied.

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.

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.

My father was bigger than life, an entity and everyone expected us, as his offspring, to be saintettes, these little carbon copies.

We've not reached the promised land. We're still wandering around, bumping into each other in the wilderness of ignorance and hate. That is why the King holiday is so important.

Do you know what I think of when I remember him? I think: He was such a kid. He taught me how to swim when I was 4 and how to ride a bike. So when I think of Martin Luther King, I think of laughter. I think of the play and the fun.

My mother supported me from the beginning and never said you should be an activist or civil rights leader or minister.

The best sermons are those that are lived.

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

I will never grow up. Everyone wants to tell me how to live my life.

As soon as people heard me speak, they would compare me to my father. My siblings had the same kind of pressure.

A feeling of self worth is the best accomplishment we can foster in our prisons.

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 have chosen to continue to promote 'we're one, the oneness of us,' and shine the spotlight, as my father did.

Til I was about eight or nine, I had no awareness he was anybody special. Since all our friends were in the movement, I thought what Daddy did was natural. Everybody went to jail, right? Then, one day some kids at school called my daddy a jailbird, and it upset me. That was the beginning of my awareness.

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

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.

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!

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

You see, for the most part it was a normal upbringing. Sure, there was the Nobel Peace award; sure, there were people coming to our house who I knew were famous. But we grew up in a very modest part of the community. Our last home was in what had been one of the worst ghettos in Atlanta.

And you don't have to be a preacher to carry on. That's why I've gone into the theater, with my mother's blessings, and someday I may write, produce and act in my own story of daddy's life. There are so many sides to his story. I hope that someday I could get that opportunity.