Priests for Life – the nation’s largest Catholic pro-life organization – is expanding and re-naming its pro-life outreach to African Americans.
Civil Rights for the Unborn – the African American Outreach of Priests for Life – will continue to be led by longtime activist Dr. Alveda King, niece of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and daughter of A.D. King.
“Our new name reflects what Priests for Life’s African American Outreach program has always been – an arm of the civil rights movement to which my family has dedicated our lives,” said King in a statement. “On this last day of Black History Month, we reaffirm that, acting under the banner Civil Rights for the Unborn, we will clearly and forcefully continue to heighten awareness in the black community that civil rights begin when life begins.”
Priests for Life’s outreach program to African Americans has worked nationally over the past ten years with other civil rights activists on numerous efforts, including protesting convicted murderer Kermit Gosnell’s “House of Horrors” abortion clinic, and publicizing “Tonya Reaves Could Have Been Me,” the campaign that developed in the wake of the tragic death of a young African American woman who died from an abortion.
Priests for Life and Civil Rights for the Unborn will be working to ensure the pro-life message is in the forefront as Americans choose the next president of the United States.
“My prayer is that we elect a pro-life president,” King said. “Nothing is more important.”
Father Frank Pavone, national director of Priests for Life said, “The right to life is both a civil right and the foundation of all other civil rights. With Alveda’s leadership, Civil Rights for the Unborn will proclaim these truths to the African American community, which has been so disproportionately devastated by abortion.”