The Rev. Bernice King has been elected president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, in Atlanta, a civil-rights advocacy group co-founded by her father, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., 52 years ago, according to CNN.

“It is a destiny call,” said Ms. King, a minister, author, and motivational speaker, after the organization announced Friday that she had been chosen over Wendell Griffen, a former judge on the Arkansas Court of Appeals.

She is the third member of her family to preside over the group, following her father, who led the organization from its founding in 1957 until his assassination in 1968, and her eldest brother, Martin Luther King III, who oversaw the organization from 1997 to 2004.