Bernice King Distances Herself From Fornite’s MLK Event

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The company stated the event was a collaboration with Time magazine, its partners, and contributions from “American Family Insurance, the DuSable Museum of African American History, and the Estate of Martin Luther King, Jr.” It was also based on an existing virtual tour Time had put together with the DuSable Museum the year prior. King, The Center, and DuSable all did not return a request for comment.

The Estate of Martin Luther King, Jr. is controlled by Bernice King and her two brothers, Dexter King and Martin Luther King III. All three have long appeared at odds with one another over how their father’s legacy and intellectual property would be used. While Bernice runs the non-profit MLK Center set up by King’s late wife, Coretta Scott King, Dexter is the chief executive for the for-profit estate, and also runs Intellectual Properties Management, the entity which licenses King’s work. Despite being set up to continue spreading King’s legacy and teachings, the Center remains separate from the Estate. The Estate, meanwhile, directly owns King’s work and most recently cut a deal to turn publishing rights for its literary archive over to HarperCollins.

In 2015, the MLK Estate sued the MLK Center over the misuse of intellectual and physical property, and sued Bernice for refusing to hand over King’s Bible and Nobel Peace Prize which the Estate was looking to potentially sell. The first lawsuit was quickly dropped while the second concluded a year later, with a judge ordering the items released back to the Estate.

This isn’t the first time Bernice King has tried to separate herself from the actions of the MLK Estate and its intellectual property rights management firm. A notorious 2018 Super Bowl ad used a recording from King’s “Drum Major Instinct” to try and sell Dodge Ram pickup trucks. It was immediately blasted, with many calling out the disrespectfulness as well as the dissonance in light of King’s critiques of capitalism. Bernice and the MLK Center disowned that corporate collaboration immediately as well.