King's dream lives on in sons, daughters

The world knows the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. as a civil-rights hero.

Martin Luther King III knows him as "Dad."

Like his three siblings, he remembers the family times, carved out of a tight schedule. "I have vivid memories," he said in a recent phone interview.

"My brother and I would go with him to the YMCA to exercise," he said. "When we got home, he'd throw a football in the front yard; we'd ride bicycles.

"We didn't have a large quantity of time [with him], but we had quality."

King, 48, is president and CEO of the King Center, the Atlanta-based nonprofit dedicated to the life and works of his father. He is a frequent speaker around the country, and is scheduled to deliver a talk on "My Father's Dream, My Mission" at 7 p.m. Monday at the Lynnwood Convention Center.

He will do a question-and-answer period after the talk, which caps a day that also includes meeting students at Edmonds Community College.

King was 10 when his father was assassinated on April 4, 1968.

At the time, his father — whom he called "fearless" — was taking on new issues, he said.

"A classic example was his opposition to the war in Vietnam," King said. "Everyone close to him said he didn't need to take on that issue. He said his moral compass would not allow him to be silent."

King said his father's last campaign, which he didn't see come to fruition, was the Poor People's Campaign, aimed at mobilizing poor Americans from all walks of life. King said his father had mapped out clear strategies for the campaign, which was the second phase of the civil-rights movement.

Though a Poor People's March did take place in Washington, D.C., in 1968 to lobby Congress to pass an anti-poverty package, the campaign didn't have quite the impact as was hoped because his father wasn't able to lead it, King said.

Dr. King's children have taken up their father's unfinished work.

"My younger sister [Bernice] is a minister, I'm leader of organizations involved with human rights and social change, my older sister [Yolanda] is in the arena of the arts, our younger brother [Dexter] is involved with the King Center — all of us are involved, some of us more directly," King said.

"We have an obligation to continue to try to challenge our society to embrace the principals he espoused — freedom, justice and equality. Today, they do not exist; 45 million people still have no health insurance and 36 million are living in poverty."

Diane Wright: 425-745-7815 or dwright@seattletimes.com