Welcome to the Mad in America podcast, your source for science, psychiatry, and social justice.

Hello, and welcome to another edition of the Mad in America podcast. I'm Amy Biancoly,

staff reporter for mad in America.com.

With me today is actor, singer, writer, and civil rights activist Donzalay Abernathy,

goddaughter of the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Her father was the Reverend Dr. Ralph David

Abernathy, King's best friend and partner in the

civil rights movement, who co-founded the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and became

president of it after King's assassination on April 4, 1968. Her mother was civil rights activist

Juanita Aberernathy.

As a child, Abernathy grew up witnessing firsthand some of the most inspiring and formative moments of the civil rights movement, and also some of the most sobering.

She grew up knowing and loving the man she called Uncle Martin, whose stance against racism, poverty, and war remain as

relevant today as they were when he first voiced them. Also relevant are his calls for creative

maladjustment, meaning the refusal to adjust to society's many ills. His goddaughter is the author of

Partners to History, Martin Luther King,

Ralph David Abernathy, and the Civil Rights Movement. And she also contributed to a book from the

Smithsonian Institute in the spirit of Martin. As an actor with a long and busy career in Hollywood,

she's known for her many roles in films, such as the Civil

War drama, Gods and Generals, and many series, including the Lifetime Drama, Any Day Now,

and the zombie apocalypse series The Walking Dead. In addition, she is the lead soloist in a new

choral piece titled The Listening, that's inspired by a speech, King delivered exactly one year before his death.

I turn my back when I hold my tongue.

I cannot be silent.

...