DENVER — Martin Luther King Jr.’s daughter responded this week to a comment made by the chairwoman of Denver’s Republican Party, Kristina Cook, in a Facebook thread: “I bet Dr. King wishes he’d had a sniper on his side that day.”
The comment caught the attention of Bernice King, Martin Luther King Jr.’s daughter. Wednesday, she tweeted, “Listen to his speech ‘I’ve Been to the Mountaintop,’ delivered the evening before he was assassinated. My father knew his time on earth was short. He stood by his non violence philosophy. He would not have wanted a gun battle on his behalf. Don’t use him for this.”
The exchange started on Facebook, when a picture of Cook was posted in the comment section by the president of Denver’s Young Democrats, Justine Sandoval.
“I had just posted to clarify that was her and the conversation went from there,” Sandoval said.
The picture shows Cook holding a rifle. Cook later, down the thread, posted her Dr. King comment.
“That comment was, ‘I wish that doctor Martin Luther King was still with us, I think that he would help heal the division that we see,'” Cook said. “That was really what was going through my head.”
“If you know anything about Dr. King you know that he was a man of non-violence,” Sandoval said. “I think it’s a discredit to Dr. King and his legacy who was a man of peace and a man of unity to say something like that.”
Cook said she has reached out to the King family and would like to discuss everything, but has not heard back.
“I can see that there are some people obviously that think it wasn’t appropriate,” she said. “Honestly, I’m baffled. I think we each approach the world in a way that reflects that how we see the world inside of us. I tend to see people’s best foot forward and so I hope that people who react to me the same way.”