Alveda C. King, the niece of Martin Luther King Jr., on Tuesday said Sen. Elizabeth Warren was "playing the race card” when she cited the King family name during her speech against the confirmation of attorney general nominee Jeff Sessions.
Warren on Tuesday during debate on Sessions’ nomination quoted from a letter written to the Senate by Coretta Scott King in 1986 opposing Sessions’ nomination then to become a federal judge. Warren was rebuked for it, and was told she was in violation of Rule 19 "of the standing rules of the Senate to impugn another senator or senators any conduct or motive unworthy or unbecoming a senator,” barring her from speaking on the floor until the debate ended.
King said her aunt’s letter was used to "stir up people’s emotions, play the race card.”
"If we take a look at my [late] aunt Coretta Scott King's letter, we know that she was a peacemaker. Her intentions were never to divide during her whole life," King told Neil Cavuto on Fox Business News. "I was her communications and correspondence secretary for several years when I was a young woman. In that letter, she would be referring to perhaps some of his comments, however, she would agree today that he of course ended some school desegregation, he worked to prosecute members of the KKK."
King said her aunt, if alive today, would note all of Sessions’ positive work.
"Aunt Coretta was a very reasonable woman and she, with integrity, would have noted that he had done some great work in fighting desegregation.”