Dr. Alveda King and Dr. Destiny Yarbrough on the vision behind their new documentary
By Karon Smedley
Water carves canyons. Not by force in any single moment, but by refusing to stop.
I live a few hours from the Grand Canyon. I get to enjoy its beauty, but I wasn’t there for a single day of the work that shaped it. Many millennials live with history the same way. They have a seat at the table but may not understand what it cost. That was on my heart when I sat down with Dr. Alveda King and Dr. Destiny Yarbrough. On September 26, they bring their documentary God Has the Vision home to Ebenezer Baptist Church, where the King family preached.
The family that would not stop
Dr. King’s grandfather, the Rev. Martin Luther King Sr., preached from Ebenezer’s pulpit for decades. His sons carried that conviction into the streets. Her father, the Rev. A.D. King, was arrested alongside his brother Martin at a 1960 Atlanta sit-in and helped lead the Birmingham campaign in 1963, the year his family’s home there was bombed. Her mother, Naomi Ruth Barber King, held the household together through all of it.
Dr. King was 17 when her uncle was killed in 1968. “I sat there in the rows [of pews] with my family, publicly grieving, bewildered,” she recalled on Fox News in 2020.
That family buried loved ones and faced open hatred from those who opposed them, yet they kept going. What took root in Dr. Alveda King was not bitterness. It was hope.
Her uncle understood the power of water. When he told the nation about his dream, he reached for the prophet Amos and called for justice to roll down like waters. Through the prophet Joel, God promised that the old would dream dreams and the young would see visions. One generation dreams it. The next is meant to see it through.
Home to Ebenezer
Historic Ebenezer on Auburn Avenue is more than a venue for this premiere. Her uncle was baptized there and later served as co-pastor beside his father, and the nation gathered in that sanctuary for his funeral.
After Martin’s death, A.D. King returned there as co-pastor and is credited with starting the church’s television ministry. Fifty-eight years later, his daughter brings a documentary about Christian television through those same doors. That is not coincidence. That is water that never stopped moving.
“Bringing the premiere of our documentary to the historic Ebenezer venue brings the message of making the vision plain full circle,” Dr. King said. “My grandfather often cited Habakkuk 2:2 from the pulpit, which still stands today.”
A vision that waited
Watch the official trailer
For Dr. King, the call to media came around 2015. “I knew around 2015 that God wanted a little more from me to glorify Him and His kingdom,” she told me. She and Dr. Day Gardner, now one of the show’s five hosts, filmed a pilot. It was good, and then it sat on the shelf, waiting for the appointed time.
Viewers will see that waiting firsthand, because parts of that pilot appear in the documentary.
The show is built on a simple premise: the world has a view, but God has the vision.
The friend who helped make it plain
The appointed time arrived through friendship. Dr. King and Dr. Yarbrough filmed a Christmas cooking special together, and it went so well that Dr. King agreed to a full series. Dr. Yarbrough still points the credit upward, saying God gave Dr. King the vision for the show.
“Alveda brought a different level of wisdom, experience and influence,” Dr. Yarbrough said. “Our relationship grew and this helped build trust, which expanded the vision.” She sees the friendship as God’s doing. “One divine relationship can shift the trajectory of what God is doing.”
Dr. Yarbrough brings serious media credentials of her own. She created and hosts DestinyX, a talk show for the next generation, and founded Salt & Light Christian Lifestyle Magazine. She wrote Visions, Dreams and Destinyand won Best TV Host at the Prayze Factor Awards. She also spent eight years as Atlanta Connect Leader for Christian Women in Media Association, the same kind of role I hold in Phoenix.
One episode stands above the rest for her. Pat Boone joined the show by Zoom and shared a song he had written for Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. years ago. Radio stations would not play it, so “The Vision” did.
“I’m telling you, the anointing was so strong,” Dr. Yarbrough said. “He wasn’t even in the studio, but the anointing just took over like a flood. Pat Boone’s crying. We’re all weeping.”
Together with Dr. Day Gardner, Pastor LeaAnn Pendergrass and Pastor Jearlyn Dennie, the two executive produce a program hosted entirely by kingdom-minded women. It films at WATC TV 57 in Atlanta and is built to reach people well beyond the church walls.
Make it plain
On September 26, two women who know what it cost will hand that vision forward.
Tickets for the Atlanta debut are available at TheVisionTVShow.com. A distribution partnership with Vision Pictures and Movie Sense will take the film to international audiences, and 2027 screenings are set for Washington, DC, on February 25 at NRB, Sherman Oaks, CA, on May 20 and Daytona Beach, FL, on September 17. You can also watch “The Vision TV Show” at TheVisionTVShow.com, on WATC TV 57 and on IBTV Faith Network, which I co-founded, Fridays at 10 a.m. ET and on demand.
A vision written down is meant to be run with. That part is on us.
Karon Smedley is a content creator and executive producer who hosts the Boardroom to Altar podcast. She is also co-founder of IBTV Faith Network, which carries “The Vision TV Show.” The full interview with Dr. Alveda King and Dr. Destiny Yarbrough is available at www.TheVisionTVShow.com.
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