Dexter Scott King, son of Martin Luther King Jr, dies of cancer at 62
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Dexter Scott King died on Jan 22 after battling prostate cancer.
PHOTO: NYTIMES
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ATLANTA – Mr Dexter Scott King, who dedicated much of his life to shepherding the civil rights legacy of his parents Martin Luther King Jr and Coretta Scott King, died on Jan 22 after battling prostate cancer. He was 62.
The King Centre in Atlanta, Georgia, which Mr Dexter King served as chairman, said the younger son of the civil rights icon died at his home in Malibu, California.
His wife Leah Weber King said in a statement that he died “peacefully in his sleep”.
Mr Martin Luther King III, the older brother of Mr Dexter King, said in a statement: “The sudden shock is devastating. It is hard to have the right words at a moment like this. We ask for your prayers at this time for the entire King family.”
The third of the Kings’ four children, Mr Dexter King was named for the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama, where his father served as a pastor when the Montgomery bus boycott – a political and social protest campaign against the policy of racial segregation on the public transit system of the city – launched him to national prominence in the wake of the 1955 arrest of civil rights activist Rosa Parks
Mr Dexter King was just seven years old when his father was assassinated in April 1968 while supporting striking sanitation workers in Memphis, Tennessee.
“He turned that pain into activism, however, and dedicated his life to advancing the dream Martin and Coretta Scott King had for their children” and others, the Reverend Al Sharpton said in a statement.
He said Mr Dexter King “left us far too soon”.
US Senator Raphael Warnock, the senior pastor of Atlanta’s Ebenezer Baptist Church where Dr Martin Luther King Jr preached, said he prayed with the King family on Jan 22 and extended “my deepest condolences, strength, and solidarity to them during this time of remembrance and grief”.
Mr Dexter King described the impact his father’s killing had on his childhood, and the rest of his life, in a 2004 memoir, Growing Up King.
“Ever since I was seven, I’ve felt I must be formal,” he wrote, adding: “Formality, seriousness, certitude – all these are difficult poses to maintain, even if you’re a person with perfect equilibrium, with all the drama life throws at you.”
As an adult, Mr Dexter King bore such a striking resemblance to his famous father that he was cast to portray him in a 2002 TV move about Parks starring Angela Bassett.
He also worked to protect the King family’s intellectual property.
In addition to serving as chairman of the King Centre, he was also president of the King estate.
Mr Dexter King and his siblings, who shared control of the family estate, did not always agree on how to uphold their parents’ legacy.
In one particularly bitter disagreement, the siblings ended up in court after Mr Dexter King and Mr Martin Luther King III in 2014 sought to sell the Nobel Peace Prize their father was awarded in 1964 along with the civil rights leader’s travelling Bible used by former US president Barack Obama for his second inauguration.
The Reverend Bernice King, the youngest child of the Kings, said she found the notion unthinkable.
The three siblings settled the dispute in 2016 after former president Jimmy Carter served as a mediator.
The items were turned over to the brothers, but other terms of the settlement were kept confidential.
Decades earlier, Mr Dexter King made headlines when he publicly declared that he believed Mr James Earl Ray, who pleaded guilty in 1969 to murdering his father, was innocent.
They met in 1997 at a Nashville prison amid an unsuccessful push by King family members to have Mr Ray stand trial, hoping the case would reveal evidence of a broader conspiracy.
When Mr Ray said during their prison meeting that he was not the killer, Mr Dexter King replied: “I believe you, and my family believes you.”
But Mr Ray never got a trial. He died from liver failure the following year.
Mr Dexter King is survived by his wife as well as his older brother, his younger sister and a teenage niece, Yolanda Renee King.
Mrs Coretta Scott King died in 2006, followed by the Kings’ oldest child Yolanda Denise King in 2007.
Rev Bernice King said in a statement: “Words cannot express the heartbreak I feel from losing another sibling.”
A memorial service will be announced later, the King Centre said.
The family planned a news conference on Jan 23 in Atlanta. AFP
