CHAPTER 11

Legacy

It was 1985, the year after my grandfather died, that we prepared to celebrate the first national King holiday in January 1986, which, after much effort and acrimony, was signed into law by then-president Ronald Reagan on November 3, 1983.

I wanted to give my own special gift to my father and his legacy. I felt that if it involved music, my passion, I could hopefully take his message to younger generations. I decided to produce a record. I called Phil in New York.

He had the musician contacts, he was a talented composer, he could help me pull it together. Phil agreed, and immediately started getting together a group of artists—rappers, initially, which at the time was very avant-garde and controversial. But we believed that rap and hip-hop would become very influential in our culture. We felt it was the crest of a new wave and that if we could do something cutting-edge like this with the song, kids would listen and maybe even hear the ideas of my father. The first person we approached was Kurtis Blow. Kurtis got excited, wanted to involve other people.

These were the beginning days of “rap,” initial stages of the whole cloth of hip-hop as a new culture. We went to a young music entrepreneur named Russell Simmons and got some of his artists involved, including his brother’s group, Run-DMC. It just snowballed from there. Initially, it was to be a rap song, but once the New York artistic community found out about it, they wanted to get involved. So it evolved to a rap/vocal/R&B song—really a chorus, with rap. Every day a new verse was written to accommodate another artist who had agreed to help, whether it was Stephanie Mills, Whitney Houston, Tina Marie, or New Edition.

We had to turn down LL Cool J, which I regret in retrospect. We didn’t have enough room. He was just starting out. Today I can’t believe some of the people we had to turn away. We had fifteen or sixteen acts, doing it on a shoestring. Studio time was donated.

We got various groups to help us until a record company picked it up. We jumped out there on faith. At the time I was the director of the office of special events and entertainment at the King Center. It seemed like the best place for me to continue to nurture my love of music and the arts while still attending to the serious mission of Mother’s life after my father’s death. The King Center is the embodiment of the work and sacrifices of my family, and my soul needs to support it. But my heart always dreamed of a life in music.

I was by then viewed as the black sheep of the family; this project didn’t reverse that perception. I don’t mean I was viewed in a bad way—I wasn’t a rebel, it was just that I was more out there than some thought I should be. I was visible socially—informally versus formally. I didn’t follow the path of being groomed, accredited, blessed. I’d moved toward the King Center, toward the legacy, for the first time with this job. I didn’t want to let down my family, but I still wanted to be me.

This record project helped to raise money for the King Center and to create awareness around the new King holiday. It was exciting, going into the studio, recording these artists. Until this day, when I see Michael Bivins, or any of the former members of New Edition, they remember. Ricky Martin was in Menudo then. It was like a “We Are the World” production. We had many of the hottest young artists, and the music video was financed entirely by Prince. Music industry veteran Clarence Avant served as our senior adviser and contributed financially. Polygram eventually picked up the record for distribution. However, we soon realized that we had set up the deal in a way that did not provide enough financial incentive for the record company to aggressively promote it. In hindsight, we would’ve been wiser to have structured it so that everybody got a little bit of something, profit-wise; that would have been more of an incentive for them to push it through the channels, and onto many more radio station airplay lists.

A lot of radio stations would not even play it once we had it pressed. I’d get on the phone with some of the black radio program directors and they’d yawn. Phil and I produced, recorded, marketed, and promoted this record. We’d done the legwork. But in the end, whenever I’d call these radio stations, they’d claim that because it had rap in it, they couldn’t play it.

Remember, this was 1985, going into 1986. Rap was still mostly underground. Ours was one of the first projects to incorporate rap into mainstream values or icons like Daddy. It would be years after before rap and hip-hop exploded. Now, seventeen years later, you can’t close a record deal, make a commercial, or record a movie soundtrack unless you have rap and hip-hop in there somewhere. But at that time, we met with a lot of resistance.

In subsequent years, around the King holiday, many radio stations would play our song, even through the ’90s.

The title of the single was “King Holiday, Sing, Celebrate.”

The lyrics went something like, “Once a year, we celebrate Washington and Lincoln on their birth dates, now a third name is added to the list, a man of peace, a drum major for justice…”

The chorus: “Sing, celebrate, sing, sing, celebrate for a King, celebrate.” The first verse started out with New Edition. “Who do we thank for teaching us that we have the strength to love…” Tina Marie came in: “We thank the prince of nonviolence…” Then Stephanie Mills, Whitney Houston—a great blend.

We conceived this thanks to many, particularly Mother and the commitment to making the King holiday a reality by the consummate musician, Stevie Wonder. Stevie composed a song, “Happy Birthday to You,” and put it on his Hotter Than July album in 1981. Now that song is sung nearly as often as the traditional “Happy Birthday” melody. Stevie was front and center of a march in Washington to help ensure there’d be a King holiday to celebrate.

We were invited to the White House again in 1983, for the signing of the King holiday legislation by President Reagan. Martin and I were quiet as we entered the White House. George and Barbara Bush, the vice president and his wife, reached out warmly, like they were accustomed to seeing black folk as people beyond whatever they had to do publicly to retain political currency. Like Humphrey, Bush was kind. I watched the faces of my mother and siblings brighten when Vice President Bush took personal time with them. President Reagan used thirty pens so those present could get to keep one and say that that was the pen he used to sign the legislation.

Vice President Bush took my brother and me to his desk and showed us where all the vice presidents of the United States, dating back many years, had carved their initials in the drawer. Then Mr. Reagan was ready for us to come into the Oval Office; from there, after formal hellos and a few stories, we walked out to the Rose Garden for the signing. George Bush reached out to me, and Barbara Bush had a downright grandmotherly warmth. With both of them, you felt like you were talking to real people. I appreciated this, especially since we were already beginning to feel public slings and arrows, backlash, I suppose from my father being so sanctified in the public memory and from the battle to make his birthday the first American national holiday to honor an African American. We were already taking hits for being just the family of Martin Luther King, Jr., and not Martin Luther King, Jr., himself.

It was an honor, no doubt, yet we’d had to demand it.

President Reagan was nice, but seemed a little aloof. But George Bush? “Come on in here! What’s going on? Let me tell you about this. Let me show you that.” That was one time I felt we were at an important moment in history, where somebody went above and beyond the call of duty. The Bushes could’ve just come for the ceremony. They also seemed to be interested in the sacrament. It didn’t come across as contrived. I sensed that these were caring, decent people. I have always appreciated their attention, especially after Granddaddy’s death, when we got condolences from the Bushes, and Vice President Bush attended the funeral.

It was the fall of ’88 when my mother called us together as a family to go on retreat. By now she’d been head of the King Center for twenty years, and through her hard work, and the help of Maynard Jackson and Andy Young when they were mayors of Atlanta, and Jimmy Carter when he was governor of Georgia and president of the United States, and captains of industry like Henry Ford, the DuPonts, and others, the Center was built and completed on Auburn Avenue, adjacent to Ebenezer Baptist Church. If ever Atlanta had a historic district, this was it.

At the countryside retreat, Mother raised the issue of succession. The King Center board of directors had been raising the issue with her; it was important for any organization to have a line of succession. At first I was barely listening, then for some reason my ears started burning. It was the way Mother was looking at me. Expectantly. Me? Not me. Not with my rep, my history.

We were in a cabin in the northeast Georgia mountains, the tailpipe of the Great Smokies, sitting in a circle, and Mother first put it out there—in essence, Who’s interested in taking this on? By then Yolanda was fully into acting, directing, producing, into the life of theater, drama, film, the arts. She shook her head emphatically. “No way,” her look said. “Not here.” In fact, her mouth said it too. Yolanda has never ever been particularly shy.

Martin had entered politics.

By then Bernice was pursuing her calling to the ministry.

We gazed around the circle and everybody wore the same expression: “Not me, it’s not me, don’t look at me,” rolling our eyes at our mother, but in a good-natured way. Then everybody kind of looked at me. Bernice and Yolanda came out and said it. I don’t know if they had worked it out beforehand. First Bernice: “Dexter, you know we need you to do this…”

“It has to be you, Dexter.”

I seemed to be the one who took the most interest in the Center, they said. Plus, I was the “why” guy. We all had gotten a little bit of something from our father. Yolanda got his sense for the dramatic, for the theatrical, and his great feel for people. Martin got his name and his ability to canvass and to be diplomatic and to advocate, and also his moderacy; Bernice got his deeply rooted spirituality, his religiosity, his philosophical bent, if I can put it that way, and, I must add, his oratorical ability.

What did I get? Outside of a resemblance to both parents? Well, in the first place, the uncanny resemblance is something, isn’t it? But also, I think I got Dad’s disposition, and patience. He was the same way. I may feel upset about something, but I know it’s not going to help matters to go do something that makes it worse. Even though to a lot of people, that’s gratification.

It wasn’t a question of whether or not I wanted this responsibility anymore. It was a question of how best to accept it. I knew that, at least for now, this move was my destiny. How can one argue with that? I had always had a sense of process from a grassroots, jailhouse lawyer perspective, watching my mom in board meetings, reading the minutes, being on the board. I probably got the best kind of training by practical experience. But I also knew that it meant continuing to put my dreams of a life in arts and entertainment on hold—indefinitely. I had been seriously considering moving to Los Angeles around the same time; really trying to make a go of it. Through my work on the King Holiday record and my position at the Center, I had developed experience and relationships in music and entertainment. But duty called, and for the love of my family I responded. I was reminded of the way my mother must have felt when she chose to postpone her musical career after graduating from the New England Conservatory of Music to return to the south with my father to continue to challenge the prevailing social conditions.

It was the spring of 1989, and I’d just turned twenty-eight. I was not scheduled to come in and officially take charge until April. The King Center board wanted it to coincide with the King assassination “anniversary,” April 4. I had an installation service, five hours of formality in the old sanctuary of Ebenezer Baptist Church, where so many of my memories were. It was a big celebration, with people from all over. Berry Gordy came and donated Motown master tapes of some of our father’s speeches. There was a real anointed feeling. It humbled me. It was a period where there was much hope and good intentions. But you know what they say about the latter. People important to me came: Phil Jones, friends from Los Angeles, some of my acting friends like Sheryl Lee Ralph. Tavis Smiley came—he at that time was working with Tom Bradley, part of a young political group. Isaac was there. My friend Jennifer Holliday sang. Adam Clayton Powell IV came, as well as other sons and daughters of the Movement.

Barbara Williams Skinner was serving as the chief operating officer and executive vice president of the King Center. Barbara was very active and prominent in black leadership circles, particularly in the D.C. area. She had worked with the Congressional Black Caucus, been in different circles, and had a longtime relationship with my mom. Some members of the board felt that Barbara needed to be packaged with me to make this, and me, credible. Because of the way it was presented, I think, to other people, it raised more questions than it answered. When the torch was passed in the ceremonial part of my installation, Barbara appeared on the platform to receive the torch with me. That in and of itself sent a message.

Is this man standing on his own two feet, or is he being propped up by Mama?

I didn’t understand it then, but in subsequent years I came to. What made it worse, the same person who made these requirements, who said he supported me, later switched the resolution and made a statement to the media when I wound up resigning five months later; he said, “We never really expected Dexter to be in charge. In fact, he was a president in training.”

President in training?

It’s always been about Mother, but I was an easy target. What I have come to find out is that people who had been gunning for my mother for years took it out on me. I’ve had people tell me that I got hit so hard on a lot of issues because there were long resentments from years back. Human nature, petty jealousies from the most stunning, disappointing quarters. And in the black community, you have issues because of her being the “First Lady of the Movement.” I have such a hard time with all these people always saying, “Dr. King… our leader… my man…” and yet stabbing her in the back the whole time. I was just like some boxer in there trying to duck punches, and getting hit, but I didn’t at the time know much of this was premeditated. I didn’t recognize Machiavellian behavior. That was my failing.

Why can’t I just go on and live and be happy being selfish? This is the conflict: not only do I know the way the system works from what I’ve experienced, but I also saw what it did to Dad. And I was not just the kid who’s scared, and saw that his dad was assassinated. We’d gotten to the mountaintop and seen not the Promised Land, but rather the truth, the very matrix itself, and we as a family seem sometimes to have a heavier burden now than we did before.

Somehow I thought that I would be able to just help, and I still believe this, maybe it’s just my fallacy, but I hang on to the fact that I can still do this—help out—and at the same time be Dexter, protect that part of me that’s mine, that’s private, or that just wants to get home safe at the end of the day. There’s a side that does not want to necessarily belong to the world. I’ve seen what the world can do to a good man, then not look back, except to put him on a pedestal once he’s gone. I’m reminded of all these noble athletic teams named after the noble red man. We have one in Atlanta— the Atlanta Braves baseball team. When did these Native Americans become recognized as noble? After they were dead. There was a time in this country when the only good Indian was a dead Indian.

The media has always portrayed my father in this very serious light, as a public icon. Do you bring him down off the pedestal and humanize him, or do you keep him up on the shelf? Maybe you keep him on the shelf, humanize the family, the wife, the mother, the children, the daughters, the sons, do what comes natural, obliterate them, since they’re still living. Maybe you go beyond that, in this insatiable celebrity- and media-driven society. Maybe you don’t just humanize—maybe you humiliate too. History puts Dad on the shelf, not people. The truth is, too many see history as largely irrelevant, passé, so they put it on the shelf until it’s convenient for their purposes.

In Isaac’s words, I “had the biggest pair.” Unlike me, he could get away with saying something like that publicly, in a relaxed, informal vernacular. Actually, my father would’ve probably gotten a kick out of that description. But I felt I had an image to live up to now. Isaac was probably less guarded, but between the two of us he probably needed to be less guarded.

There was another, less obvious dilemma. Once my father’s cause came into prominence, a lot of local connections were almost severed, with the exception of my grandfather. When my father was growing up, his family was plugged in locally. I must be honest, it’s almost a shame to say it, but after he came to prominence, a fear developed. In Atlanta in the ’50s and ’60s, there was a large section of black society, including the preacher-teacher class, that felt, “Hey, we’re straight. We don’t necessarily need to integrate.” It probably was the James Crow Esquire example of separate but near-equal, meaning the infrastructure for some blacks in Atlanta wasn’t such a low-grade thing. Houses in the black community, for blacks who could afford them, were as nice as houses in some white communities. Blacks could buy nice cars, there were restaurants here serving them. No need to go over to Lester Maddox’s place to get met by an ax handle. Black chefs here were as good as white ones. There were places in Atlanta for talent to express itself. The colleges, education, even on lower levels, the schools, were as good as the white schools. People here weren’t anxious to upset the apple cart. Many of them were fine with the status quo. The extension of that today is in people who write editorial columns saying they see the King family as an embarrassment, like something of another era, something that is no longer needed, a sort of civil rights history exhibit.

There was and is lingering resentment because of this history. There were a lot of successful, intelligent, well-to-do people, right there on the King Center board, who had resentments. My grandfather didn’t encounter it as much. My father? That’s another story. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying everyone liked my grandfather. He was a driven man. Such men are never universally liked. The resentment I’m speaking of against my father was from his generation. Don’t rock our boat. You might spill our champagne. We don’t need you anymore. Go on home now, preacher and children alike. And this mentality was about to land on me, on us all, and land hard.