Surely, MLK didn't Dream this

[Imhotep]

WTF: MLK Family Feud

JULY 11--A family dispute over the valuable estates of Martin

Luther King Jr. and Coretta Scott King has landed the late couple's children in court, with two of the siblings claming that a third has misappropriated money from their parents's estates. Bernice King and Martin Luther King III charge that, in late June, their brother Dexter improperly transferred "substantial funds" from Bank of America to accounts he controls, according to a Superior Court lawsuit filed yesterday in Fulton County, Georgia.

The Bank of America account contains funds from the estate of Coretta Scott King, who died in 2006 at age 78. Bernice King, 45, is administrator of her late mother's estate, while Dexter, 47, is president of the Estate of Martin Luther King Jr. corporation, of which the siblings are all shareholders. The operation of that business is in disarray, with the siblings "deadlocked" in its management, according to the complaint, which charges that the company's assets are "being misapplied or wasted."

A copy of the July 10 lawsuit, which was first reported by Courthouse News, can be found below. Dexter King's siblings allege that he "controls" the corporation and has "wrongfully appropriated assets" from the firm "for his own benefit." He also has allegedly refused to provide his brother and sister with "information and documentation concerning the operation, actions and financial affairs of the Corporation to which they are entitled."

In 2006, the King corporation, which controls the use of the late civil rights leader's image, sold a private collection of his papers that had been estimated to be worth about $30 million. The material was to have been auctioned by Sotheby's, but was purchased by a coalition of Atlanta civic and business leaders for future display by Morehouse College, King's alma mater. (11 pages)

{My two cents a "Trust" set up by Coretta Scott King, would have stopped this quick. Now the lawyers are going to get fat off of this.}

http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/years/2008/0711081king1.html

 

[QueEx]

Re: WTF: MLK Family Feud

{My two cents a "Trust" set up by Coretta Scott King, would have stopped this quick. Now the lawyers are going to get fat off of this.}

Hmmmmm . . . blame the lawyers for the family's greed, mismanagement, waste, etc.

 

[QueEx]

<font size="5"><center>
MLK movie in limbo
as King siblings squabble</font size><font size="4">

DreamWorks Studios will back out of plans to produce a movie
about the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. unless King's three
surviving children settle their differences over the deal</font size></center>

From left, Dexter, Bernice, Martin and Yolanda
King. The three surviving siblings have had
several public rifts.



LOS ANGELES, California (CNN) -- DreamWorks Studios will back out of plans to produce a movie about the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. unless King's three surviving children settle their differences over the deal, the studio said Wednesday.

A longtime friend of the three Kings predicted peace may be at hand for the squabbling siblings and that all of them want Steven Spielberg's studio to portray their father's life on the big screen.

The latest public rift between Dexter King, the chief executive of the King estate, and his brother and sister -- Martin Luther King III and Bernice King -- erupted Tuesday after it was made public that Dexter King, 48, had finalized the deal with DreamWorks.

Martin King, 51, and Bernice King, 46, learned that a deal had been struck when Dexter sent them an e-mail Tuesday morning, just as the news media was being told by the studio, a source close to the family told CNN.

Yolanda King, the eldest of the Kings' four children, died two years ago at age 51.

Martin King and Bernice King, who live in Atlanta, Georgia, had known that Dexter King, who lives in California, was negotiating with Spielberg on a possible movie deal, the source said.

Bernice King and Martin King said they knew nothing about the DreamWorks project. They said they embraced the idea of a film about their father but told CNN's "Larry King Live" they were concerned about the deal.

"I think Mr. Spielberg is a great producer and we look forward to hearing from him about the scope of this agreement," Bernice King said. "We know nothing about the scope of this agreement. We have no details to say whether or not this particular one is a good idea."

DreamWorks issued a statement Wednesday that suggested King family unity was essential for the movie to be made.

"The purpose of making a movie about the life of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. is to tell a great story which could bridge distances and bring people together," the statement said. "We remain committed to pursuing a film chronicling Martin Luther King's life provided that there is unity in the family so we can make a film about unity in our nation."

DreamWorks executives appeared caught by surprise by the King family's infighting, although such squabbles are not new -- Martin King and Bernice King filed a lawsuit against Dexter King last year over publication of their mother's recently discovered love letters.

Martin King and Bernice King have complained in court filings that Dexter King has acted independently for years on estate business matters, refusing to call a family meeting.

Over the past year, angered over Dexter King's move to publish their mother's love letters, neither Martin King nor Bernice King has spoken to Dexter King, the source close to the family said.

Dexter King, in a written statement Wednesday evening, said he has "always upheld my duty" as CEO of the King estate to communicate with the others.

"Although my communication with family members has been somewhat stymied by the current litigation, I have continued to reach out and I remain committed to working together with my siblings on projects to educate people about the life, leadership and teachings of our father, Martin Luther King Jr.," Dexter King said.

DreamWorks is "a company with unrivaled resources for making epic films of the highest quality, offers an unprecedented opportunity for educating the largest possible audience about our father's legacy as the leader of America's greatest nonviolent movement," he said.

"Just as Sir Richard Attenborough's film, 'Gandhi,' educated many millions of people all over the world about the Mahatma's teachings, I believe this project can do the same regarding the life, work and teachings of Martin Luther King Jr., and I sincerely hope my brother and sister will join us in supporting this urgently needed project," Dexter King said.

Tom Houck, an Atlanta public relations agent who has known all three children since the 1960s, when he was their father's driver, suggested the dispute could be resolved.

"I don't think that either Martin or Bernice are opposed to having a megafilm done on the big screen by DreamWorks, but I think it's the mechanism and the way it was done that's got them upset," Houck said.

"They're feeling that, until they resolve some problems with Dexter, that they're not going to be very forthcoming in letting this project go forward," he said.

Houck suggested someone such as the Rev. Andrew Young, a close aide to the patriarch during the civil-rights movement, might be able to help the siblings reconcile. Young is a former Atlanta mayor and former U.N. ambassador.

"Martin and Bernice want to have some reconciliation with Dexter before they sign off on it," Houck said.



http://www.cnn.com/2009/SHOWBIZ/Movies/05/20/mlk.movie/?iref=mpstoryview

 

[QueEx]

<font size="5"><center>
King’s Children May Sue
Over Planned Biographical Film</font size></center>

The New York Times
By Dave Itzkoff
May 20, 2009


Two children of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. have threatened legal action against a planned film about their father, saying that the project did not have their approval, The Associated Press reported. On Tuesday, DreamWorks announced that it had acquired the rights to King’s life story from the King estate, which is led by the civil rights leader’s son Dexter, for a film to be produced by Steven Spielberg. But two other King children, Bernice King and Martin Luther King III, told The A.P. they had not been consulted on the deal. “They don’t have the blessings of Bernice and Martin King,” Bernice King said. The King siblings have battled in court over projects about their father’s legacy, as well as a planned biography of their mother, Coretta Scott King.



http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2...en-may-sue-over-planned-biographical-film/?hp

 

[heiesuke]

Oh well cuz its not like the movie was to be a documentary, in the hopes of informing today's youth of who Dr. King really was and what he stood for. It would be nothing more than a cash cow for the producers.

 

[Ill Paragraph]

Peace,

King's children are laboring under a burden of tremendous expectation. Having said that, they need to do better. I remember someone making a thread celebrating the fact that one of them had managed to get a woman pregnant - thereby extending the blood line. Shit was disgraceful.

 

[Partial_Mathers]

No Malcolm X in my history texts, why's that?/
Because he tried to educate and liberate all blacks/
Why is Martin Luther King in my book each week?/
He told blacks, if they get smacked, turn the other cheek/

-2PAC

 

[QueEx]

Martin Luther King, Jr., Holiday Weekend, 2011

 

[QueEx]

<font size="3">Martin Luther King Jr. was 26 when he had his first child,
Yolanda. His four children were just five, seven, 10 and
12 when he was assassinated in 1968. Understanding
that no father could possibly leave bigger shoes to fill,
what have they done with their lives?
</font size>

Martin Luther King III

Age: 53

His mother had reservations about naming him after his famous father, "realizing the burdens it can create for the child." Indeed bearing the name of one of America's greatest leaders seems to have been a mixed blessing for King's oldest son, who has encountered a fair share of criticism.

Mr. King was a Fulton County commissioner for six years until he was defeated for reelection in 1993 after revealing that he owed the federal government more than $200,000 in back taxes and fines.

In 1998, King became the fourth president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, the civil rights group founded by his father. He was suspended for a week by the organization's board members due to concern that he wasn't moving quickly enough. King left the SCLC in January 2004 to serve as director and co-owner of the King Center for Nonviolent Social Change with his brother, Dexter Scott King.

In 2006, King founded an organization called Realizing the Dream, which works to end poverty. King is married to Arndrea Waters King, and together they have one daughter, who was born in 2008.

Bernice King

Age: 47

MLK Jr.'s youngest daughter is a motivational speaker, licensed attorney and ordained minister. In 2009, Reverend Bernice King was elected as the first woman president of the Atlanta-based Southern Christian Leadership Conference. However, King has yet to be sworn in due to organizational infighting that she described as "a sad state of affairs."

The world often looks to Bernice to explain what her father would think. "I know my father would be proud of America," she told CNN when Obama's presidential victory was announced.

Like most of her siblings, she is not married and does not have any children.

At left, Bernice King and her brother Martin Luther King III speak during the Michael Jackson public memorial service in Los Angeles on July 7, 2009.

Dexter Scott King

Age: 49

Dexter Scott King has spent his life trying to shape how the world remembers his father -- sometimes in a way that's at odds with what his siblings want.

"He has always thought he had the responsibility of communicating his father’s and mother’s legacy globally," explained Andrew Young, Martin Luther King Jr.'s lieutenant, during a controversy about the film that Dexter tried to have made about his father in 2009. A film about his father is Dexter's longtime goal, Young also said.

Dexter, who lives in Malibu, has played his slain father in movies such as the The Rosa Parks Story.

In the media, Dexter's accomplishments have been widely overshadowed by his fighting with his family. King became the president of the Martin Luther King Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change in 1989 but resigned his post after a dispute with his mother. In 2008, King's brother and sister sued him, claiming he mishandled family money and failed to properly involve them in family business matters. Dexter filed a countersuit six weeks later. The lawsuits were settled out of court in October 2009, but the family is yet to come together.

Yolanda King

Age: Born Nov. 17, 1955; 51 at time of death

Yolanda King was the eldest of the King children. She wrote and produced plays, gave motivational speeches to major corporations and acted in commercials and movies.


King founded a theatrical production company, Higher Ground Productions, dedicated to what she called "personal empowerment" and was on the board of the King Center. Ms. King was meeting her brother Dexter King at a friend’s home in Santa Monica, Calif. when she collapsed and died.


​

http://bltwy.msnbc.msn.com/politics/a-look-at-martin-luther-kings-kids-9352.gallery

 

[QueEx]

<font size="5"><center>
SCLC Says It Will Go on Without Bernice King</font size><font size="4">

A decision by Martin Luther King Jr.'s daughter Bernice
to decline the presidency of the embattled civil rights
group is a big hit but not a knockout blow</font size></center>

The Root
By: A. Scott Walton
January 21, 2011


The core leadership of the Atlanta-based Southern Christian Leadership Conference insists that it was not blindsided by today's news that Martin Luther King Jr.'s daughter Bernice is turning down the presidency of the organization that her father co-founded back in 1957.

"We have not been leadership-less, and we still are not leadership-less," Dr. Howard Creecy Jr., the national vice president, said during an exclusive interview with The Root at the SCLC's headquarters on downtown Atlanta's historic Auburn Avenue.

"We are still about the people, not one particular person."

After officially informing the SCLC's board members of her decision on Thursday, King released a public statement Friday expressing her personal disappointment over the "turmoil, chaos and confusion" she has seen at the SCLC over the last 15 months.

"After numerous attempts to connect with the official Board leaders on how to move forward under my leadership, unfortunately, our visions did not align. Therefore, after praying mightily and seeking wise counsel, I have decided not to assume the [SCLC] presidency," stated King, who is an elder pastor at Bishop Eddie Long's mega-church in suburban Atlanta.

"As a steward of the King legacy, I must shift my focus to further advancing its growth and perpetuation overall," she continued. "Specifically, I will be devoting my energy towards developing my mother's legacy, Mrs. Coretta Scott King; preparing to work with the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference alongside Reverend Samuel Rodriguez; and laying the groundwork to launch a ministry initiative. I will continue to pray for SCLC's growth and resurrection and wish the organization great success in its mission."

Essentially, the move distances her from all of the legal dustups that have sullied the SCLC's image in recent years. King was elected SCLC president in 2009 but never officially took office. A federal investigation looking into about $500,000 in misplaced funds -- directing blame toward a former SCLC chairman and his treasurer -- had created deep rifts within the board leadership and caused King to keep her distance.

Until the SCLC initiates and executes a new plan of action in August, when its national members and directors meet, Creecy is interim president.

According to Creecy, chief members of the board had been "in dialogue" with King about plotting a new course for the civil rights group, previously helmed at different stages by King's father and her older brother, Martin Luther King III. Creecy wouldn't specify how King informed the board of her decision, saying instead, "We received correspondence from her similar to what you received in her press release."

With its last thread of connection to the King legacy being severed, the SCLC's future is uncertain. However, the work of the SCLC -- "being advocates for the last, the least and the lost," as Creecy put it -- will go on, he insisted. "We are not a personality-driven organization. The plight of poor people in America is still our focus."

A. Scott Walton is a reporter based in Atlanta.

http://www.theroot.com/views/sclc-says-it-will-go-without-bernice-king

 

[nittie]

If you ever met or dealt with the King children it's obvious they are not leaders. Another thing is the SCLC even under Dr. King has always been capitalistic, about personal profit for it's leaders where the NAACP has been about the people.

 

[texast]

It's time that black america stops getting its "leadership" from the church anyway. It's time for our business leaders to step up to the forefront.

That's how the jews changed things for themselves. It wasn't a movement by the rabbis. It was direction from the jewish elite, more concerned with the entire people than their own personal wealth (and they still managed to increase their personal wealth). Why do you think Bernie Madoff's son committed suicide. Bernie Madoff's son was filthy rich and had a beautiful wife and three kids but he was embarrased because his father made the unforgivable crime of stealing from other jews instead of stealing from non jews which is ok. To the jews money means nothing if they know their people aren't being taken care of.

 

[Costanza]

<font size="3">Martin Luther King Jr. was 26 when he had his first child,
Yolanda. His four children were just five, seven, 10 and
12 when he was assassinated in 1968. Understanding
that no father could possibly leave bigger shoes to fill,
what have they done with their lives?
</font size>

12 years old... I don't know what any father can communicate to his children in such a short period of time.

 

[QueEx]

 

[QueEx]

MLK's Children:
They Have a Scheme

A group raises millions;
to build a memorial to your dad;
pays you well; and
now can't use his name?

​

(The Root) -- It must be the incurable cynic in me, or a twisted sense of humor, or some other flaw in my character. But whatever the reason, I just can't get upset by the latest news about the alleged perfidy of Martin Luther King Jr.'s children.

That's the story broken the other day by TV One's Joseph Williams and Roland Martin, that Dr. King's heirs have forced the foundation that raised more than $100 million to build his memorial in Washington to stop using his name. Henceforth, what was known as the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Foundation will be the Memorial Foundation. On its new website, the group pointedly refers to itself as the "builders of the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial."

According to a story in USA Today, the whole dispute is much ado about nothing, since the plan had always been for the foundation to stop using King's name after the memorial was completed. But in the past, the King children have expressed concern that contributions to the foundation would cut into donations to the family-controlled King Center. They've sued news organizations and writers for using his words without authorization.

Since it's only a few days until April 4, the 45th anniversary of King's murder, it would be easy to work myself up into a lather about this incident. I could rail about how greedy the King kids have become and how outrageous it is for them to go after a group that has already paid them $2.7 million for the honor of using their father's likeness and words on the edifice they built on the National Mall.

Or I could join veterans of the civil rights movement who must be wringing their hands over how this unseemly fuss is also complicating the celebration planned for this summer of the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington, at which King delivered his famous "I Have a Dream" speech -- which I would quote at length if I weren't worried about Martin III, Bernice and Dexter filing a suit for copyright infringement if I did.

But, hey, I'm not going to indulge in that sort of hating. Instead, I'm going to celebrate. Because this case proves beyond any doubt that the lofty ideals that King outlined in that famous speech are alive and well.

One of the ideals I'm referring to is, of course, that we ought to judge folks by their content of their character, not the color of their skin, or by extension, their parentage. That means, to use a biblical phrase, that we won't visit the sins of the father upon his descendants. We don't, for example, think it's fair to brand someone as a carjacker simply because his grandfather was a horse thief.

But doesn't that logic also work in the other direction -- that just because someone was a saint, we won't expect his children to be? I mean, doesn't everybody have an equal opportunity to carve out his or her own destiny, as King preached? Why should his offspring be criticized for milking every dollar they can from his famous name just because he was an impecunious human rights activist and not a rich entertainer like Elvis Presley or Michael Jackson? Can't we judge them on their own merits?

The high-minded standards that old fogeys like me used to live by were cooked up in a different era, when black folks were powerless outsiders with limited opportunities for lining their pockets. Back in the 1960s, it was easy for young civil rights workers to keep their hands out of the cookie jar because there weren't any cookies inside it.

But the calculus changed once we started getting elected to public office and rising in the business world. Once the cookie jar got stuffed with chocolate chip macadamias in the form of lucrative campaign contributions, control over government funds and big royalty payments, not everyone could resist. Our sense of morality needs to catch up to the times.

Grubby and undignified though some may find it, the King children's profiteering -- or, forgive the pun, "propheteering" -- from his name is perfectly legal. He had a dream, and they have a scheme. Could anything be more American?

Jack White, a former columnist for Time magazine, is a freelance writer in Richmond, Va.
​

SOURCE

 

[muckraker10021]

“It’s all about the benjamins” in today’s global world. The King children want and need money. They see money flying all around them. Irrelevant rappers and “housewives” in their Atlanta area are stacking millions; the King kids —not so much. The murder of their famous iconic father left an indelible chasm in their lives. The public at large expectations for their lives are unrealistic and unattainable when compared to their father. The same dilemma envelops the daughters of Malcolm X. The NAACP and Urban League should have purchased a $5 Million dollar “key person” life insurance policy on Coretta Scott King which would of paid the King kids $5 Million tax-free when she passed. The Jewish advocacy organizations do this type of thing all the time for “key persons” in their movement — Black advocacy groups not at all.


We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately.
-Benjamin Franklin-

 

[QueEx]

Harry Belafonte Suing Martin Luther King
Jr.’s Family in Documents Dispute
​

Why is the 86-year-old performer taking on King’s family in court?

Belafonte is attempting to regain ownership of several documents which he says he was given by his friend, King, and which he had been planning to auction off for charity. This legal scuffle has been going on for some time, as Belafonte attempted to auction the documents in 2008 but was stymied by King’s daughter Bernice, who alleged that they had been “wrongfully acquired.”

The various documents, according to the Post, came to Belafonte through a variety of channels:

• Belafonte had a condolence letter that President-at-the-time Lyndon Johnson had written to King’s wife Coretta after King’s death, which was given to him by Coretta herself in 2003.

• A former King aide gave him the notes for a never-delivered speech King had on his person when he was assassinated.

• Belafonte was handed a speech King gave in 1967 speaking out against American involvement in Vietnam by King himself.

“Dr. King was a regular guest at Mr. Belafonte’s Manhattan apartment: he worked, socialized and rested there,” the suit states. “Not surprisingly, during their long time together, Mr. Belafonte came to own documents associated with Dr. King and his widow.”

Belafonte says all the documents combined are worth a total of about $1.3 million (so, a little less than two former Kim Kardashian engagement rings) and he wants the money to go to charity. His suit, filed yesterday in Manhattan court, says that he wants to “resolve [this] once and for all.” He’s looking for unspecified damages, and also some sort of court-ordered pronouncement that he is the rightful owner of the documents.

The items currently remain at Sotheby’s, where Belafonte had left them in 2008 to be assessed and valued, which is when Bernice claimed they had been “wrongfully acquired.” In the suit, Belafonte says there has been no elaboration from the King family in relation to this argument: “Not a scintilla of evidence was ever offered to support this claim, yet the Estate demanded the documents be turned over to them.” The King estate’s lawyer did not offer a comment, and told the Post he hasn’t seen the lawsuit.
​

SOURCE

 

[QueEx]

The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s notes for an undelivered speech.

New York Times: Belafonte Sues Heirs of Martin Luther King Jr.

 

[Upgrade Dave]

I have no problem with the King children be diligent, even overly so, in protecting their father's images and property. I don't see why corporate America should make money off Dr King but his children can't.


But

This Belafonte thing is way too far. If there was ever a friend to their father and, after his death, their family, it was Harry Belafonte.

 

[QueEx]

 

[QueEx]

 

[Greed]

Urban streets named after MLK struggle to inspire

Urban streets named after MLK struggle to inspire
By ALAN SCHER ZAGIER | Associated Press
Sun, Jan 19, 2014

ST. LOUIS (AP) — A walk down the 6-mile city street named for the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. yields plenty of images that would surely unsettle the civil rights leader: shuttered storefronts, open-air drug markets and a glut of pawn shops, quickie check-cashing providers and liquor stores.

The urban decay along Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Drive in St. Louis can be found in other major American cities, from Houston and Milwaukee to the nation's capital.

"It's a national problem," said Melvin White, a 46-year-old postal worker in St. Louis and founder of a 3-year-old nonprofit group that is trying to restore King's legacy on asphalt. "Dr. King would be turning over in his grave."

Nearly three decades into the observance of Monday's federal holiday, the continuing decline of the most visible symbols of King's work has White and others calling for a renewed commitment to the more than 900 streets nationwide named in the Atlanta native's honor. The effort centers in St. Louis, where the small nonprofit is working to reclaim MLK roadways as a source of pride and inspiration, not disappointment over a dream derailed.

White's goals are ambitious, his resources admittedly modest. A neighborhood park is planned across the street from the group's headquarters. An urban agriculture project to encourage residents to eat healthy and grow their own food has preliminary support from nearby Washington University, one of the country's wealthiest private colleges. Above all, Beloved Streets of America wants to build community from the ashes of what was once a thriving retail corridor when White was a child.

The template can be found just a mile away. Delmar Boulevard, which saw a similar decline, is now a vibrant retail corridor packed with restaurants, nightclubs, a renovated movie theater and a boutique hotel. The renaissance earned Delmar recognition in 2007 as one of "10 Great Streets in America" by the American Planning Association.

Journalist Jonathan Tilove, who wrote a 2003 book based on visits to 650 King streets nationwide, called the King byways "black America's Main Street."

"Map them and you map a nation within a nation, a place where white America seldom goes and black America can be itself," he wrote. "It is a parallel universe with a different center of gravity and distinctive sensibilities. ... There is no other street like it."

But while streets named for King undoubtedly resonate widely in the black community, a University of Tennessee geography professor whose research explores the cultural and political significance of such streets said the compromised condition of streets named for King in St. Louis and other cities deserves broader attention.

"In some ways we racially profile these streets," said Derek Alderman, author of a 2007 study that found a smaller disparity among MLK-named streets and other "main streets" than is popularly portrayed. "We need to move beyond those images and see what concrete lives and realities are living on those streets."

More than 50 years after King led his march on Washington, communities large and small still debate whether to rename local streets in his honor. In Harrisonburg, Va., city leaders recently agreed to rename a street for King over protests by some residents. A similar debate continues in High Point, N.C., where a King street proposal first suggested two decades ago remains up in the air.

Other cities have had more success in balancing the desire to commemorate King without superseding local tradition. Alderman singled out Chapel Hill, N.C., which in 2005 renamed a major thoroughfare that abuts the University of North Carolina campus. Street signs that identify Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard also include the name "Historic Airport Road."

Chicago's Martin Luther King Drive, a major thoroughfare spanning roughly a dozen miles south of downtown, is anchored by important hubs of black life in the city. The street features grassy boulevards with stately greystones, while other segments touch rougher patches that have fallen into disrepair, including a dilapidated motel that drew community protests over crime. Gentrification is taking hold along some parts.

The major landmarks include Bronzeville, the neighborhood where numerous black activists lived or worked and tourism officials have marked with plaques. There's also Chicago State University, where Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Gwendolyn Brooks taught.

In Miami, Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard stretches from the predominantly Cuban town of Hialeah through largely black Liberty City and into Little Haiti — a reflection of both the city's diverse demographics as well as its lingering segregation.

Along MLK Boulevard in Hialeah, where U.S. flags fly alongside Cuban ones, MLK Boulevard isn't known as the street named after a civil rights leader. Rather, it's simply referred to by its number: "La Nueve Street," or 9th Street.

The sights and sounds of MLK Boulevard change in Liberty City, where many buildings are shuttered and storefront churches can be found on almost every block. In the decades after the civil rights movement, Liberty City has seen two race riots and struggled to escape a cycle of violence and poverty.

At Miami Edison High School on the border of Liberty City and Little Haiti, 17-year-old Judith Etienne said King would be disappointed in his unfulfilled dream.

"I'm sure Martin Luther King didn't have this in his dream," she said. "There's a lot of kids dying of gang violence in this community."

For Alderman, the King street scholar, the struggle to reclaim MLK Jr. Drive in St. Louis offers a realistic portrayal of the battles King waged a half-century ago — and where such efforts need to reach into the 21st Century.

"Those street names are really powerful social indicators of how far we've come in really fulfilling the dream, and giving us an indication of where we need to do more work," he said. "As much as it may sadden us, it demarcates and defines boundaries for civil rights activism for the future. You've got something that remembers the past that actually works, in its own tragic irony, to symbolize where the struggle still is."

http://news.yahoo.com/urban-streets-named-mlk-still-struggle-154853690.html

 

[QueEx]

Re: Urban streets named after MLK struggle to inspire

Leonard Pitts Jr.:
For sale, the MLK legacy​

By LEONARD PITTS JR.
The Miami Herald
February 9, 2014


"I won't have any money to leave behind. I won't have the fine and luxurious things of life to leave behind. But I just want to leave a committed life behind." - Martin Luther King, Jr., Feb. 4, 1968

Maybe we should take up an offering.

Obviously, the heirs of Martin Luther King Jr. are hard up for money. That must be why they keep selling off pieces of his legacy.

Have you heard the latest? King's youngest child, Bernice, issued a statement last week after her brothers, Dexter and Martin III, filed suit to force her to turn over their father's Nobel Peace Prize and his traveling Bible. She says they want to sell them to a private owner.

According to the suit, King's heirs agreed in 1995 to turn their inheritance over to a corporate entity, The Estate of Martin Luther King Jr. Inc., where Martin is chairman of the board. The complaint says Bernice has "repeatedly acknowledged and conceded the validity" of the agreement, but still refuses to surrender the items. The suit makes no mention of a sale. I called the King brothers' lawyer for comment. He didn't return the call.

In her statement, Bernice writes, "While I love my brothers dearly, this latest decision by them is extremely troubling." She says she is "appalled," "ashamed" and "disappointed" by their behavior. "It reveals a desperation beyond comprehension." Their father, she adds, "MUST be turning in his grave."

Turning? Martin Luther King must be spinning like a record album.

Not just because of this, but because over the years his family has missed no opportunity to pimp his legacy. That verb is used advisedly. I am mindful of its racial freight, but frankly, no other word adequately describes the behavior of this family with regard to its most celebrated member. Every year, they remind us to respect his legacy, but it seems increasingly apparent they don't respect - or even fully understand it - themselves.

If they did, they could not have licensed his image for a commercial with Homer Simpson. Or put his personal papers on sale for $20 million. Or demanded money to allow his likeness to grace a memorial on the Washington Mall.

What would King think of them fighting Harry Belafonte for the return of papers King gave him as a gift - especially since Belafonte helped finance King's movement and the upbringing of these selfsame kids?

What would King think of the fact that these bickering, tiresome children of his are forever in litigation and public squabbles with one another and that money always seems to be at the root? Especially since he famously disdained "shallow things" like personal gain?

So yes, let's pass the hat. How much do you think it would take to induce these people to grow up, shut up, and stop using their daddy like an ATM?

I admit to being selective in my vexation. If Woodrow Wilson's heirs sold his Nobel Prize, or Booker T. Washington's his Bible, I doubt I would even notice.

The difference, I think, is that King is nearer to us in time and of a magnitude of greatness those men, great though they were, do not approach. He resides on a pantheon of American heroes occupied by the Founders, Abraham Lincoln and no one else. Moreover with him there is, especially for African-Americans but really for all believers in human dignity, a sense of communal ownership and collective investment - a sense that he is ours and his memory, sacred. His children are the caretakers of that memory on behalf of us all. To trade on it for the love of money is starkly appalling and profoundly offensive.

The fact that they either don't understand this or don't care speaks volumes. King's kids may be legally entitled to sell his legacy to the highest bidder. But the fact that a thing is legal to do does not make it right to do.

Considering who their father was, you'd think that's something they'd know.

ABOUT THE WRITER

Leonard Pitts Jr., winner of the 2004 Pulitzer Prize for commentary, is a columnist for the Miami Herald, 3511 N.W. 91 Avenue, Doral, Fla. 33172. Readers may write to him via email at lpitts@miamiherald.com.
​

Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2014/02/09/217515/leonard-pitts-jr-for-sale-the.html#storylink=cpy

 

[Upgrade Dave]

The Belafonte thing bothered the hell out of me as it smacked of ungratefulness but the other stuff doesn't bother me at all.
A lot of people have made money off Dr King's images and words before his family took control. They treat their father's intellectual property the same as Thomas Jefferson's and George Washington's.
Someone some day is going to sell these things, better them than someone else.

 

[QueEx]

You're right U.D., other heirs, famous or not, dispose of their deceased parent's real, personal and intellectual property -- and the King heirs have that same right. And it is commendable when some individuals or an organization purchase those items for historic preservation and public display. It would be my wish that they handle their business without the public appearance, if that's possible, of internal dispute. I know, in the end the King children like their famous father and mother, are just human - and humans are fallible. I just hate to see their "intra-familial fallibility", so public. On the other hand, because they are who they are and the media being what it is, their internal disputes may be destined to be, public.

 

[Upgrade Dave]

You're right U.D., other heirs, famous or not, dispose of their deceased parent's real, personal and intellectual property -- and the King heirs have that same right. And it is commendable when some individuals or an organization purchase those items for historic preservation and public display. It would be my wish that they handle their business without the public appearance, if that's possible, of internal dispute. I know, in the end the King children like their famous father and mother, are just human - and humans are fallible. I just hate to see their "intra-familial fallibility", so public. On the other hand, because they are who they are and the media being what it is, their internal disputes may be destined to be, public.

 

[QueEx]

Martin Luther King Jr.'s children return
to court over his Bible and Nobel Prize​

January 13, 2015

(CNN)— The children of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. will be in an Atlanta court Tuesday in the latest chapter of an ugly legal fight pitting the two brothers against their sister.

At issue: control over two precious items that belonged to their father, (1) his Bible and (2) his Nobel Peace Prize.

The Bible, which King took on the road with him, was used to swear in President Barack Obama for his second term.

The Peace Prize King received in 1964 was for his "nonviolent campaign against racism." King's acceptance of that prize is the opening scene in the critically acclaimed civil rights film "Selma."

That image: of a civil rights icon being recognized for his work stands sharply at odds with the public fight between the siblings. Something Bernice King herself has noted, calling it "an embarrassing chapter in our family's history."
​

Bernice King contends her brothers aim to sell them, something she robustly opposes.

Dexter King and Martin Luther King III succeeded last year in getting Bernice King to hand over the relics.

Since then, they've been in a safe deposit box and, in a sign of how contentious the fight has been, only a judge has a key.

Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney could soon decide which side will ultimately control the items.

Before the case ended up in a courtroom, the siblings held a vote to determine if they should sell the items. The three make up the board of the King Estate. The brothers say that the future of the estate would be threatened if a sale could not be made. They both voted to sell, Bernice voted against.

No prospective buyers or dollar amount have been publicly disclosed.

In 2006 the estate put King's papers on the auction block. But before the planned sale at Sotheby's could go forward a group of anonymous buyers stepped in. The group paid an "undisclosed amount" for the 10,000 manuscripts and books, including drafts of his "I Have a Dream" speech. The collection, which had been expected to go for as much as $30 million, is now housed at Morehouse College in Atlanta.

Two years later Bernice and Martin filed suit against Dexter. They accused him of converting "substantial funds from the estate's financial account at Bank of America" for his own use. The case was later settled.



​

http://www.cnn.com/2015/01/13/us/martin-luther-king-family-feud/

 

[QueEx]

To understand Martin Luther King Jr., don't rely on the highlights reel, experts say

Reducing King to a teddy bear of a civil rights figure robs him of how much he risked and makes it easier to vilify modern activists, experts said.

Civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. during the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom on Aug. 28, 1963, in Washington.AFP - Getty Images file


Jan. 20, 2020, 10:34 AM CST
By Janell Ross
Martin Luther King Jr., the only African American for whom a federal holiday has ever been established, is so widely revered that 90 percent of Americans regarded him favorably, according to a 2019 poll.
But those who have researched King say much of what he truly thought is misunderstood or ignored, or has been supplanted by warm and fuzzy fiction.

Today, King is so deeply misunderstood that his description of a utopian colorblind future has been twisted to undermine the need for a Voting Rights Act and other policies and programs that integrate schools, said Tommie Shelby, a professor of philosophy at Harvard and chair of the department of Africana and African American studies.

King's modern-day political opponents frequently quote him and misappropriate his ideas, experts said. And his philosophy of nonviolent resistance — organized boycotts, sit-ins, rent strikes and other forms of collective action and civil disobedience — has been inaccurately recast as passive, inoffensive, even widely supported during his lifetime, Shelby said.

“Some of this is a feature of American political culture,” Shelby, who co-edited the collection of essays “To Shape a New World: Essays on the Political Philosophy of Martin Luther King,” said.

“But also some things are easier to swallow,” he added. “It is easier for affluent people, people who do not want to think of themselves as racist, to be opposed to segregated facilities and violent racial discrimination, than contend with King’s support for the radical redistribution of wealth and opportunity.”

Reducing King to a teddy bear of a civil rights figure robs King of how much he risked, how much he sacrificed and makes it easier to vilify modern-day civil rights activists, said Jeanne Theoharis, a professor of political science at Brooklyn College, City University of New York. It also allows the country to pretend that racism is a mostly a resolved matter that exists only in extremes, she said.

Related
News
Martin Luther King Jr.: His life in pictures
“There’s no question, we live in a horrible political climate today,” said Theoharis, author of “A More Beautiful and Terrible History: The Uses and Misuses of Civil Rights History.”

“Among the many problems is this weird self-satisfaction about what a racist looks like,” Theoharis said. “They say nasty things and go to nasty rallies as opposed to what King himself repeatedly said. After Watts, he writes this piece that has this great line about how he has gotten disillusioned with Northern leaders who shower praise on the movement in the South but when attention turns to their city then, only the language is polite. The resistance is hard.”

Public understanding of King as a man opposed to the Vietnam War, militarism and vast inequality has expanded, Theoharis and Smith said. But, during his lifetime, King also supported collective bargaining and public provisions for basic needs as technological innovations gobbled up the jobs of less-skilled workers. He condemned the scourge of unchecked police misconduct and the racism inherent in arguments against police accountability.

King abhorred the idea that time itself would produce racial equality. He believed urgent action and disruption were required. The truth, experts said, is there in the speeches, five books, letters, interviews and other public statements King left behind — no interpretation or misappropriation necessary.

King is the best authority on King.

“But, if any of us are going to have a more accurate understanding of King,” Theoharis said, “we need to, as a general rule, commit to read the whole damn thing. The whole thing.”

So, on this, the 34th Martin Luther King Jr. federal holiday, Shelby and Theoharis, two of the nation’s leading King experts, have shared a list of critical King reading.

They advised reading King’s books — including the lesser-known "The Trumpet of Conscience" and "All Labor Has Dignity” — and collected speeches and essays in “A Testament of Hope” and a “Single Garment of Destiny: A Global Vision of Justice.”

They also recommend the following speeches:

• "I Have a Dream"
• "Letter From a Birmingham Jail"
• "Beyond Vietnam (Also known as A Time to Break Silence)"
• "Where Do We Go From Here"

______________________
CORRECTION (Jan. 20, 2020, 1:49 p.m. ET): A previous version of this article misstated the title of a book by King. It is "The Trumpet of Conscience,"

To understand King, don't rely on the highlights reel, experts warn

Reducing King to a teddy bear of a civil rights figure robs him of how much he risked and makes it easier to vilify modern activists, experts said.

www.nbcnews.com

not "The Trumpet of Conscious."