Growing Up King

by Dexter Scott King

  What I see for Atlanta, the home of my youth, is that it continues growing on a steady path. Daddy’s legacy is one of the city’s biggest claims to fame now, the thing that undergirds it. Andy Young says that’s why the Olympics came there, the African delegates delivered it to Atlanta. We didn’t win all European nations. We got a few votes, but it was that bloc of the African continent saying, “I haven’t been to Atlanta, but isn’t that where Dr. King is from?” Yet his surviving family continues to be attacked, for no reason except none of us, his children, turned out to be him. All of us together are him—the part that’s left on this earth. The King Center’s original purpose was to be a nonprofit programming organization educating the public, serving as a clearinghouse of information and training in nonviolent techniques. It was also intended as—and has become—a repository of artifacts, a learning place. It serves as a blueprint provider, a kind of resource manager, focusing more on the software, the message. It can help take you there.

  After I spent a few months in California, Mother came to visit me. When she looked out over the ocean from my heightened vantage point, all she could say was a word I’d never heard her say before: “Wow!” Then she said, “It’s… so beautiful… only God could create such as this.”

  Mother hasn’t left Atlanta—not yet. I’d like to see her spend her later years in a comfortable place, giving out her yearly children’s book award, being representative. At peace. She deserves it. Where Mother will go from 234 Sunset, Vine City, only time will tell. One reason L.A. appealed to me is that I know Yolanda—my not-so-terrible big sister Yoki—is very happy out here in Los Angeles, living, working. She had a guest shot on an episode of the TV series JAG. She played a judge, of all things. Played it well too. She always did have that knack.

  My father’s legacy is universal. It’s not limited to Atlanta, Georgia, or the South. It tends to follow one around. He changed a social landscape in Atlanta, and places like Montgomery, Selma, Birmingham, Chicago, Cleveland, Harlem, Memphis, and L.A. His base was always Atlanta. He was a not-so-simple country preacher—not so simple at all.

  For me, it all comes back to communication. We all want to find the right vehicle to communicate. I plan to try to do it by venturing out here on the West Coast, in L.A. I feel liberated by the anonymity of it, the new, open spaces, the creative environment, the feeling of a frontier, and of being more free, the fluid, constant yet eternal change of the waves coming in off the Pacific. There is power in their sound and in their eternal force, the feel of the spray, the ions in the air. A reinvention of self. I feel free to do it now. For a long time I never felt comfortable being thought of—as honorable as it is—as the son of Martin Luther King, Jr. I’ll be at peace when I have something on my own. Self-expression is subjective; people don’t care who you are. They care what you can produce, how you make them feel. I hope and I fear at the same time. I hope people will accept us, the children of Martin Luther King, Jr. I hope people will accept me. I know now I’ll live, whether they do or not. So I start again. Fresh.

  The terrorist attacks and subsequent events on and after September 11, 2001, have profoundly rocked and changed America forever. Once again, my father’s message of nonviolent social change seems relevant. As one who has lost loved ones through violence and tragedy, I continue to pray for the victims and their families as they endure a long, difficult recovery. My brother and sisters are okay. Martin’s heart is in the right place. Bernice—you may hear from her one day, in a spiritual way. She will always be a special messenger. Don’t take my word for it. Just listen to her. You haven’t heard the last from her, as a spiritual guide, as an orator. Yoki—she’s so creative, expressive, so honest and unafraid. She’s like our Daddy too. Like one of my father’s sermons. I love her very much. Maybe one day she can come up with another new role for me. Prince Charming always was a stretch.

  As for me, I’ve left Atlanta, but it will never leave me. Vine City, Collier Heights, West End, Cascade, Ebenezer, Galloway, Douglass, Peachtree, Morehouse, Spelman, the AU Center, Sweet Auburn, the King Center, Midtown, Buckhead; Uncle Andy, Isaac, my cousins, aunts and uncles, my friends, even my foes, and some people who were both friend and foe—none of them will ever leave me.

  I think of this and all of them while overlooking the Pacific Ocean, listening to the roar of breakers rolling in. I am reminded of my father’s voice, how it comforted me, and does still.

  Freedom never comes easy. Neither does life; maybe that’s part of my contribution. Maybe to show how easy it isn’t, is my contribution. I don’t know. I’ve learned that not knowing is permissible— it carries no shame. Part of a journey is struggle, failure. You still must give yourself permission to live. Would he approve? Would he disapprove? I let it go. I didn’t follow tradition, but it wasn’t because I didn’t want to be about my father’s business. It was part of a greater plan. God’s plan. Any scholar who wants to dispute that—feel free. No more about me now. I’m unworthy. I know it. I feel glad to have this opportunity to remember.

  I sit on the beach. I feel stronger with each passing minute, each bracing inhalation of sea air. I stay near the water. I see the little boy. He looks like… Daddy. The boy finally asks me:

  “Can you show me how to walk on water?”

  “… I don’t think I can,” I say.

  “I know,” he replies.

  “But it’s all right,” I say.

  “I know.”

  I hear my father’s voice inside the waters. He walks with me and he talks with me and he tells me I am his own, and the joy we share as we fade into memory, none other has ever known. We plot a course in the Promised Land. It’s up to Yolanda, Martin, Bernice, me, and you. I pray for health, understanding, character, progress. I hope God is not finished with us yet. So our story really ends at the beginning. This is our story, this is our song. So was it Written, in a minor key.

  It’s not sad. It’s life.