But critics say its mission has become blurred in recent years and divisions have emerged, in particular over its sceptical approach to wholesale pearl jewelry gay rights.

Among the potential flashpoints for King will be the debate on same-sex marriage. The president of the SCLC's Los Angeles branch was almost fired last year in a clash with the leadership over his support for gay marriage. King opposes it and has implied that her father would have too, once remarking: "I know deep down in my sanctified soul that he did not take a bullet for same-sex unions."

Emerging as the most prominent of King's surviving children, she is a minister at a Georgia church and tours as a motivational speaker. Her website contains a snippet of her speaking "in tongues" and she has confided in congregations that the Holy Spirit revealed to cultured freshwater pearl her that her initials, BA King, are significant in meaning to "be a king".

She is the second sibling to serve as president of the SCLC, following in the footsteps of Martin Luther King III, who headed it from 1997 to 2004 – a tenure widely considered to be lacklustre.

Experts say the movement is in desperate need of a spark. "It's been 20 years since there was a solid hand of leadership," Ralph Luker, an Atlanta-based civil rights historian, told the Guardian. "It's drifted enough to make its reason for being altogether unclear."

Luker said her high profile would help her – but akoya pearl necklace said she was a less unifying figure than her father: "Both in the timbre and in the substance of what she says when she speaks or preaches, her voice seems to be more conservative in substance – and I would say even more shrill."

An older sister of Bernice, Yolanda King, died suddenly in 2007 at the age of 51. The three remaining siblings faced off in court recently in a disagreement over management of King Inc but reached an agreement to appoint a custodian to run it.

King's election was secured by a 23-to-15 vote, defeating a former Arkansas judge, Wendell Griffen. Specialists in African American politics said King would need to set out an agenda beyond her family history when she takes up the position in the new year. "She can hark back to her father's legacy, but she's going to have to redefine it," said Andra Gillespie, a cultured pearl jewelry professor at Emory University in Atlanta.

"She … is going to have to figure out a way to push that legacy forward so we don't perpetuate a stagnant, chauvinistic civil rights agenda."

She is a firebrand baptist preacher at the forefront of American black politics, whether speaking at the Democratic National Convention, at which Barack Obama was nominated as presidential candidate, or as one of those chosen to eulogise Michael Jackson at pearl jewelry wholesale the singer's star-studded memorial service.

Now Bernice King, the youngest child of Martin Luther King, has a new mission: to revitalise the civil rights organisation co-founded by her father as the first woman to lead the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.

In recent years, the SCLC, born as an akoya pearl necklace America-wide grassroots movement at the vanguard of a struggle against racial segregation, has been damaged by infighting and directional drift.

Now the group, which today is a sprawling church-based network of 10,000 members in 17 US states, has turned to King's daughter to resurrect it.

Bernice King's election at the weekend, which made her its first female leader, came just weeks after the resolution of a bitter squabble between King's offspring over management of their father's estate that led to a public legal battle pitting Bernice and pearl jewelry wholesale her brother, Martin Luther King III, against a third sibling, Dexter King.

Speaking in a room at Atlanta's Ebenezer Baptist Church, where her father celebrated his last birthday before his 1968 assassination, King promised to use her family legacy to energise a new generation's non-violent battle for social justice and to increase the involvement of women.

"I stand before you as a daughter of the civil rights movement calling forth the daughters and sons of the next generation of social change," said King, who pledged to build a bridge between veteran black activists of the 1960s and the hip-hop generation of the present day. "I am a King, yet I am mindful that I am not the only one."

Established in the racial storm that followed Rosa Parks's arrest in 1955 for refusing to give up her seat to a white man on a segregated bus in Montgomery, Alabama, the SCLC was shaped by Martin Luther King as a peaceful campaign for  silver pearl jewelry voting rights, housing fairness and opposition to the Vietnam war.

Before news of the difference in opinion over Truss's suitability broke, Cameron had already committed himself to imposing the freshwater pearl pendant controversial all-women shortlists on some constituencies after Christmas.

However, this case threatens to tread on constituency turf and damage Cameron's attempt to "detoxify" his party's image. The South West Norfolk party is reported to have received messages of support from neighbouring constituencies, also fed up by the party's high command "parachuting in of the beautiful people".

However, Luckhurst said the idea that the local party was defending itself and its decisions against an overmighty centre was "deplorable sanctimony". Instead she paints a akoya pearl necklace picture of widespread misogyny and suggests the purpose of the backlash against Truss is to discourage other women.

Luckhurst, who used to sit on the Scottish Conservatives candidates board, describes herself being deselected when she became pregnant without consulting her constituency party. She said local associations would frequently ask women "whether they have children, how they intend to look after them if they are elected and whether their husband will accompany them to the adoption meeting".

Of the South West Norfolk party, Luckhurst writes: "Their conduct makes [the Tories'] case unappealing to ambitious women, it weakens our potential to akoya pearl necklace appeal beyond our traditional electoral base and diminishes our capacity to govern in the national interest."

Grass roots Conservative party members are guilty of "misogyny and jealousy" which risks driving women away from standing as parliamentary candidates, it is claimed.

Dorothy Luckhurst, who is on silver pearl jewelry the Tory A-list, writes in the Guardian that the row over whether fellow candidate Liz Truss should have told her local officials that she had had an affair made the party look beyond the "frontiers of tolerance".

Party modernisers are in a battle with the Norfolk constituency threatening to deselect Truss on account of her failing to disclose an affair five years ago with Tory MP Mark Field. The local party's officials only learned of her affairs three days after picking her for the freshwater pearl necklace safe Conservative seat last weekend and insist Truss was being dishonest.

It also emerged over the weekend that a senior Tory official had rejected requests to ask Truss about her past before she won the selection, further irritating the grassroots at the perceived interference from Conservative central headquarters.

Truss, director of the London-based thinktank Reform and a working mother-of-two, is the type of woman Tory leader David Cameron wants to encourage into his party; this is the latest battle of wills between the so-called Notting Hill set and cultured freshwater pearl a local association.

The Los Angeles Lakers began their NBA title defence with a 99-92 win over their city rivals the Clippers on the opening night of the season.

The Lakers celebrated last year's success, their 15th, with a host of former stars, including Magic Johnson and James Worthy, attending the game at the pearl jewelry wholesale Staples Center. They looked on as Kobe Bryant scored a game-high 33 points, while the rising talent Andrew Bynum proved his worth with 26 points and 13 rebounds.

The Cleveland Cavaliers, meanwhile, began life with Shaquille O'Neal with a home defeat to the Boston Celtics, 95-89. Paul Pierce led the way for the 2008 champions with 23 points and 11 rebounds to put a dampener on the pre-season expectations that freshwater pearl jewelry have been inflated by O'Neal's arrival from Phoenix.

LeBron James, the reigning MVP, poured in 38 points and added eight assists and although O'Neal also contributed 10 points and 10 boards, the Celtics grabbed their first win in Cleveland for almost five years.

Gilbert Arenas led the Washington Wizards with 29 points on his comeback from knee surgery as they beat the Dallas Mavericks 102-91. Dirk Nowitzki led all scorers with 34 points but it was not enough as the new Wizards coach Flip Saunders started with a win.

The Portland Trail Blazers got revenge on the Houston Rockets for south sea pearl necklace their play-off elimination last season, with a 96-87 home win. The Rockets won in the first round of the post-season, but without their long-term injury worry Yao Ming last night they began with defeat. Travis Outlaw inspired the hosts with 23 points while Brandon Roy chipped in with 19 points.