[csusbpeace] Julia Roberts Reveals Martin Luther King Jr. Paid The Hospital Bill For Her Birth
- From: "raccoon" <dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> ("bigraccoon1")
- To: "CSUSBPEACE@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <CSUSBPEACE@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sun, 30 Oct 2022 19:39:19 -0700
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/julia-roberts-reveals-martin-luther-king-jr-paid-the-hospital-bill-for-her-birth_n_635ec04fe4b07c6cedc43a8a
Julia Roberts Reveals Martin Luther King Jr. Paid The Hospital Bill For Her
Birth
Roberts said her parents were close friends with the civil rights activist
and his wife, whose children joined their theater school — and were targeted
as a result.
Roberts said King Jr. and his wife Coretta were close friends of her parents.
Albert L. Ortega/Getty Images (left); Universal History Archive/Getty Images
In a recent conversation with CBS News reporter Gayle King
<https://www.huffpost.com/news/topic/gayle-king> for the History Channel,
actor Julia Roberts
<https://www.huffpost.com/entertainment/topic/julia-roberts> revealed that
late civil rights activists Martin Luther King Jr.
<https://www.huffpost.com/voices/topic/martin-luther-king> and his wife,
Coretta Scott King <https://www.huffpost.com/topic/coretta-scott-king>, who
were close friends of her parents, paid the hospital bill for her birth.
“The King family paid for my hospital bill… Martin Luther King and Coretta,”
Roberts told Gayle King, according to Insider
<https://www.insider.com/julia-roberts-martin-luther-king-jr-paid-for-her-birth-2022-10>.
The conversation from late September, which was part of a series called
“HISTORYTalks <http://www.historytalks2022.com/>” held in Washington, D.C.,
went viral Friday when Zara Rahim, a former strategic adviser to President
Barack Obama <https://www.huffpost.com/news/topic/barack-obama>, tweeted the
interview clip
<https://twitter.com/ZaraRahim/status/1586040491644444672?s=20&t=F3SaOEZv709KXS9EFaHALg>
to celebrate the actor’s 55th birthday.
“One day Coretta called my mother and asked if her kids could be part of the
school because they were having a hard time finding a place that would accept
her kids,” Roberts told King. “My mom was like, ‘Sure, come on over,’ and so
they all just became friends.”
Roberts said her parents, Walter and Betty Lou Roberts, ran the Actors and
Writers Workshop in Atlanta before she was born in 1967. Segregation kept the
civil rights leader’s daughters from attending white schools — and even their
entry in a theater school sparked violence.
The Ku Klux Klan <https://www.huffpost.com/topic/ku-klux-klan> blew up a car
outside the school after Yolanda, the eldest King daughter, was cast in a
play in which she kissed Philip DePoy, a white actor, who chronicled the
terrifying incident of domestic terrorism in an essay for ARTS ATL in 2013.
“I kissed a girl, and 10 yards away, a Buick exploded,” wrote DePoy
<https://www.artsatl.org/essay-walter-roberts-academy-theatre-formed-foundation-atlantas-theater-scene/>.
“… The girl was Yolanda King, daughter of Coretta and Martin Luther King Jr.
I was primarily Caucasian and Yolanda wasn’t. That’s what the trouble was
about. I don’t know who owned the Buick, but I know who blew it up.”
Roberts said the Kings “helped us out of a jam” when her parents couldn’t
afford to pay the hospital bill for her birth on Oct. 28, 1967, in Smyrna,
Georgia. She never stopped being vocal about racial injustice and told
Rolling Stone in 1990 that her town was “horribly racist” and a “living
hell,” according to The New York Times
<https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1990/08/02/985190.html?pageNumber=26>.
“In the ’60s, you didn’t have little Black children interacting with little
white kids in an acting school, and your parents were like, ‘Come on in,’”
King marveled in response to Roberts’ story. “I think that’s extraordinary,
and it sort of lays the groundwork for who you are.”
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