Growing Up King (10 page)

Marvin Gaye’s album
What’s Going On
was released in the spring of ’71, with meaningful songs—“What’s Going On,” “Inner City Blues,” “Mercy Mercy Me.” They make
me think of times after my father’s death, not just in our house but everywhere, it seemed. People embraced the Sound. The
Wattstax festival happened at the L.A. Coliseum in ’72. Isaac Hayes was Black Moses; his statements were
Hot Buttered Soul
, and from the
Movement
LP, “I Stand Accused.” He won an Oscar for the score to the Gordon Parks movie
Shaft
. Vietnam remained a bloody quagmire.

A lot was going on beneath surfaces. The early ’70s were poignant; music marked the time and the emotion. Music was a comfort—maybe
my only comfort. There was no pressure or disappointment from Mother. She was always our champion in terms of saying, “This
is your life, so go do what God calls you to do. Be yourself. Live.” These are the same values my father instilled. My granddaddy
King probably was disappointed in me, but it was never to a point where I felt threatened or coerced, like, “I’ve got to do
something, or else.”

You see, our grandfather always made it very clear he wanted all of his boys, “grandboys,” grandsons, to preach. And he’d
ask me all the time. It got to a point where it was a running joke. He’d say, “Son, have you heard the Call yet?”

I’d say, “No, Granddaddy. But I think I heard a whisper.”

And then he’d crack up, and I’d breathe a sigh of relief. “If your heart is not in it, if it’s just expediency, don’t do it,”
he said. I think he genuinely respected honesty. Certainly he wanted to see his “grandboys” in the ministry. Neither my brother
nor I went that route. I don’t think it was rebellion, I just think we had other interests, lived in a different time, dreamed
different dreams.

My grandfather never mentioned being “called” to Bernice. Again, as God would have it, the person who, in my own humble opinion,
was the least likely candidate, probably has benefited the most from spirituality. Bunny. Growing up, she’d always been shy,
introverted. Could hardly get anything out of Bernice growing up. She was quiet and kept to herself, especially after Daddy
died. Now you can’t shut her up. These days I’ll joke with her sometimes and say, “We couldn’t get you to talk then; now you’re
like the spiritual version of CNN.”

Back then she needed her silence to deal with her own baggage and issues. Maybe her introspection brought her closer, spiritually,
to Daddy’s legacy. I identified spiritually, but not necessarily from a religious or institutional perspective. I never wanted
to wear the robes. I believe all of us have a pulpit. Your pulpit can be in a different place—a nontraditional setting. The
trick is, you just have to find it. Life’s kind of odd that way.

I think circumstances forged all four of us, melded us into one—or one good one, one whole one, if you will. I don’t want
to say we built a wall around us, but we weren’t kidders anymore, as gregarious. That doesn’t mean we didn’t like having fun,
but a combination of tragedy and always being front and center in the spotlight—any child growing up in a church where the
parent is the pastor feels that kind of spotlight. All of us developed this caution, this reserve, that affected our closest
interpersonal relationships. Such as they were.

Around this time, my cousins started calling me “Count.” Short for Count Dracula, meaning Dexter could sleep; a lot of my
sleeping would occur during the day, and at night it might not.

Don’t know why I slept so much in daylight hours. Don’t know where that came from. Maybe the dreams. Mother, while concerned
about my sleep patterns, had her own dream. In the aftermath of our father’s assassination she gave birth again, this time
to the idea of creating a memorial to my father, an institution she called “a living memorial,” one that would not be static,
not just brick and mortar and that’s all, but something to have a problem-solving aspect, to reach people, to perpetuate my
father’s philosophy, work, and legacy. It was an ambitious vision. It was called the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial Center.
Initially, it was run out of the basement of our house at 234 Sunset. Mother had conceived it, and immediately she ran with
it.

A few years later, the board changed the name to the Martin Luther King, Jr. Center for Non-Violent Social Change, at Mother’s
insistence, with an emphasis on nonviolence, training, education, and research. Mother had talked to my father during his
lifetime about creating an institution that could serve as the repository for his papers and also be a headquarters where
he and his staff and followers could deal with policy issues. The seed was planted during his lifetime, but it became even
more important and fulfilling for her after he died.

There was this urgency in her we could sense, to create a memorial, to institutionalize his work. It all slowly began to happen.
Of course, she had the instrumental support of most of her family and friends. There were some who thought she would never
get it done.

At first it was a matter of raising grant money and getting corporate donations. Jimmy Carter, by then president of the United
States, was instrumental in helping that along. The Ford family in Michigan also was instrumental, and I felt privileged in
retrospect to have been a part of some of those first meetings, as early as 1978. I traveled with Mom to some of these fund-raising
luncheons, capital-funds drives. I went to Dearborn, Michigan, to a luncheon hosted by Henry Ford and representatives from
the DuPont foundation. Members of the wealthy philanthropic community were there. Ford chaired this capital-funds campaign
and President Carter hosted a White House kick-off reception. While at the Ford meeting, I had a feeling, like I did before
at the White House after my father died—a feeling of understanding that this was what my father had died for, this access.
Something was trying to dawn in my mind—something to do with the way people, particularly these people, were.

I did not know at the time the history of the Atlanta University Center, how John D. Rockefeller’s largesse built Spelman
College, starting in 1882, when it was only an idea for an Atlanta Female Baptist Seminary. Spelman was the family name of
Rockefeller’s wife, Laura, a Cleveland, Ohio, native who’d known Sojourner Truth and who’d been instructed by two of the four
original teachers at Spelman. Rockefeller noblesse oblige continued for forty-five years. The AU Center spun out of Rockefeller-Spelman
philanthropy; dollars kept coming in to fund the growth of all the campuses, particularly Spelman, after Rockefeller’s wealth
later attracted the attention of the Internal Revenue Service. This was long, long before Bill Cosby and his wife, Camille,
became wealthy African Americans, and made multimillion-dollar donations to Spelman.

So Mother’s meeting with wealthy patrons to get support for an institution starting in the basement of her house was history
repeating itself. Although I didn’t know it, there was wisdom in Mother’s fund-raising technique. She always included us in
processes. I was photographed with famous visitors who dropped in to see us after the nascent King Center moved from the basement
of 234 Sunset to the basement of the ITC, the Interdenominational Theological Center, a few blocks away at the AU Center.
She was using space in their facility. It wasn’t the King Center yet, but even then we received visitors on a personal level.
There’s a photo of me talking to Mother in her office, taken around ’71. Marvin Gaye is there visiting with her. I can still
hear his lyrics from his immortal album, done in the wake of my father’s death:

Mother, mother, there’s far too many of you crying

Brother, brother, there’s far too many of you dying

Though immersed in her work, Mother made time for us. She was still our mother, a working mom, and understood as a single
parent the importance of playing both roles, sensitive to what Martin had said to her about wishing he had two moms. When
she was gone, she made sure we had Uncle Andy, Aunt Jean, Big Mama, Uncle A.D., Aunt Naomi, Aunt Christine, Uncle Isaac, Aunt
Fran Lucas, the late Aunt Fran Thomas, and my mother’s sister, Aunt Edythe. And then there was the multifaceted Mr. Horton,
who helped in many ways over time.

Martin and I got minibikes. Motorized mopeds. Mine was home-rigged and a hand-me-down from Martin. My brother got a Honda
70. He led. I followed in his footsteps. Mr. Horton helped us with the engines if they acted up. He ran errands, commiserated
over skinned knees. He was quiet and retiring, yet always there for us. He had us work around the house. Chores. He managed
the process. Mr. Horton managed the grounds, and managed us too, in a way, and did it very well. Mother had to be out of town
often. So Mr. Horton would pick us up, drop us off, listen to us, do for us. Definitely after my father died, Mr. Horton was
instrumental in dealing with the day-to-day.

However, before any kind of normal routine could be established, tragedy struck again.

T
hat’s one small step for man… one giant leap for mankind.”

Alfred Daniel King, Sr., Daddy’s younger brother, died a little more than a year after my father was assassinated. Uncle A.D.
drowned in his backyard swimming pool on July 21, 1969, nine days before his thirty-ninth birthday, less than forty-eight
hours after Neil Armstrong walked on the moon, a week removed from the Ted Kennedy/Mary Jo Kopechne Chappaquiddick incident.

Uncle A.D. had taken my siblings and me to Jamaica for that July weekend, and two of his own five children. We’d all looked
forward to it. I remember the islanders’ melodious voices sounding like Geoffrey Holder—“Welcome to Jamaica, your new i-land
home”—and Uncle A.D., saying, “Watch out for the jellyfish, now!” He went with us but he went back to the mainland early,
to preach a sermon that Sunday. Monday, the next day, was his oldest son Al’s seventeenth birthday. It was Al who found Uncle
A.D. that Monday morning, floating in the backyard pool.

Uncle A.D. was a Baptist minister too. He came to co-pastor at Ebenezer and help my grandfather after Daddy was killed.

My cousin Alveda, eldest of his and Aunt Naomi’s five children, didn’t agree with the accidental drowning report. Uncle A.D.
had been very vocal about his questions regarding my father’s death. My sisters and brother and I didn’t give it much thought.
When I heard the name “James Earl Ray” I averted my eyes; consciously or not, my sensory equipment shut down. Not Uncle A.D.’s.

“There’s more to this than meets the eye, and one day God will judge it all,” Uncle A.D. said anytime the subject of my father’s
murder was broached. We had gotten to the point where we didn’t broach it out loud. But we looked forward to Jamaica. Uncle
A.D. had taught Alveda and the rest of his children—Al, Derek, Darlene, and Vernon—how to swim. He’d been on the swim team
as a young man at Morehouse College, in fact was the number-one-ranked swimmer on the team. My siblings and I leaned on Uncle
A.D. Now he was gone too, prompting a disconnect between me and any adult males. What was the point in connecting with someone
who was dying soon?

We were still in Jamaica when we found out Uncle A.D. was dead. Aunt Naomi was with us. It was traumatic for everyone, but
at that point, there was less of me there to be traumatized. We all had withdrawn, some more than others. Me more than Yolanda,
Yolanda more than Martin, let’s say, and Bernice far more than me. But we could relax with Uncle A.D. and Aunt Naomi, be young
children again, not so somber or fearful or filled with these strange but seemingly necessary feelings of formality. We were
with him on the beach, swimming in the ocean. I’d gotten stung by a jellyfish, a Portuguese man-of-war. My uncle brought me
out of the water, and tended to me.

“The Reverend A. D. King, brother of Martin Luther King, was found dead in an in-ground swimming pool in the rear of his Atlanta
home…” “Just over a year after Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., was assassinated at a Memphis motel, A. D. King was found in his
underwear, floating face down…”

Outside Atlanta, Uncle A.D.’s untimely death barely caused a ripple of attention. But inside our family, it was a nightmare.
Alveda always suspected foul play of some kind or another.

Uncle A.D.’s death was officially ruled accidental by the Fulton County coroner.

Alveda never bought it for a second. She had sat up with him watching television the night before he died. She said he’d been
unusually quiet; you know the saying—it was more like TV was watching him. Then she finally went to bed. It was mysterious,
because a man who loves to swim doesn’t drown in his own pool. When the paramedics arrived, she noticed there was no water
in her father’s lungs, suggesting foul play. Much later on, she and Jeff Prugh, a locally based reporter, later an editor
at the
Marin Independent Journal
in Novato, California, went to the Fulton County coroner’s office and found no medical examiner’s notes on Uncle A.D.’s death.
They were told, “Dr. Dillon [the medical examiner] had a bad habit. He kept it in his head.”