CHAPTER 21

Free at Last

Free at last, free at last… but free to do what? Go where? And with whom? I get off the plane and enter into a brilliant blue day in L.A. I find my place easily. It’s a place on the beach. I sit in the sand with my pants legs rolled up. I listen to the roar of the waves breaking in off the Pacific. They’ll always be there. They’ll never stop. As long as there’s an earth, a sun, a moon, and the tides. I walk along the beach at the ocean’s edge, getting my feet wet, thinking, “On Christ the solid rock I stand, all other ground is sinking sand.” I know what sinking sand feels like. Feels like— this. I see a boy of six or seven. We resemble each other, I think, as though we might be related, although I don’t see how this could be. But he looks at me expectantly, as if he knows me, or wants to ask me something. I try to ignore him. But I find I really can’t…

Later I meet with the Man from CBS. His name is Leslie Moonves, head of the network. We are meeting about the CBS case. The estate lawyers won a reversal before a federal judge. “We could keep paying lawyers,” I said. CBS has deep, deep pockets; we do not. They could take it all the way to the Supreme Court, I remember what one once said. Copyright and intellectual property are the real estate of the future. I am about to repeat this to Mr. Moonves. But I wait. He is smiling.

I say nothing. We will agree to agree today. He is a nice and pragmatic man. He is in a good mood. He has authorized a show called Survivor. And it has done very well for CBS, soundly beating Who Wants to Be a Millionaire. At the time, Who Wants to Be a Millionaire on the ABC network, was not only the number-onerated show—it was four of the top five shows. ABC was riding high, and heads hung low over at CBS. Ratings are important because they dictate the rates the networks can charge advertisers. Leslie Moonves decided to green-light Survivor on May 31, 2000, after two previous denials. It beat the pants off Millionaire. Survivor had been getting 25 million viewers—1.3 million more viewers than all other broadcast networks combined. Leslie Moonves was therefore happy. And I was getting there.

A few months later the CBS case is settled. Mr. Moonves and I have dinner. His Survivor is still going strong, outdrawing everything but Super Bowls. He’s ecstatic. We discuss prospects. He turns reflective; the first Survivor ends in September. I wanted to tell him I wish his version of Survivor could go on forever. I don’t tell him that I’ve waited all my life for my version of Survivor to end.

I go to Los Angeles Lakers NBA basketball games. They are the playoff games, conducted with a great intensity. The games are held near downtown L.A., at the Staples Center. The Philips Arena in Atlanta has better sightlines. But here at Staples Center, I feel I am in a better seat.

The Lakers, with young stars Shaquille O’Neal and Kobe Bryant, are going for the NBA title. I’ve been invited to the game by producer and television personality Byron Allen. We’ve hit it off. He is smart and savvy. He owns the TV shows he is involved with as a personable host. He has innumerable contacts. He hears buzz. All the buzz. He’s been talking to this hot African American female screenwriter about Mother’s book, My Life with Martin Luther King, Jr. Byron says he loves it. I love it too. Hollywood people are good at agreeing. It is a fairly new experience for me.

We sit near Paul Allen as the Lakers play the Portland Trail Blazers. Paul Allen, he of Microsoft wealth, owns the Portland Trail Blazers. Steven Spielberg sits near him. Spielberg nods knowingly, spreads his mouth in a smile, and cocks his head in artistic appreciation when one of the Trail Blazers makes a play, even though he is a Lakers fan. Paul Allen is one of the primary investors in the DreamWorks studio run by Mr. Spielberg, Mr. Geffen, and Jeffrey Katzenberg, who is also present. Mr. Katzenberg says something wry about “knowing who to cheer for.” I shake hands with Mr. Spielberg. He seems a nice man, and, on balance, a good man. He was given an NAACP Image Award, came to get it, spoke well. Maybe things will be all right in America. Maybe…

Many stars are at the Lakers playoff games, stars so big the world knows them by first names only—Dustin, Denzel, Arnold, Jack. I get lost in the crowd. No one pays me much attention. The anonymity is like a warm blanket. I go back home. Out here I can do what I want, maybe even be whoever I am. Why not? Michael Ovitz was also at the Lakers game. He once ran the Creative Artists Agency, and served as the president of Disney for a short stint. In the early ’90s, Michelle Clark Jenkins and I talked with him about prospects for a movie about my father. He told me he was recently on a podium with my brother, Martin, said Martin spoke before he did, wowed the room, left a tough act to follow. I smile…

Funny how it broke down—Yoki and me, child No. 1 and child No. 3, in California, in “La-La Land,” trying to make our way, Yoki as an actress; Martin and Bernice, No. 2 and No. 4, in Atlanta, in Washington, D.C., on Saturday, August 26, 2000, at the “Redeem the Dream” rally, on the Mall, in front of the Lincoln Memorial, almost thirty-seven years to the day from the March on Washington, where Daddy gave the “I Have a Dream” speech. He wanted his children and all people judged by the “content of their character,” not the color of their skin. Thirty-seven years later, Martin III, gray-bearded now, told the gathered crowd, estimated at 100,000, that the dream hadn’t been fulfilled—not when an unarmed black man named Amadou Diallo could be shot forty-seven times by a group of five New York policemen who emptied the clips of their automatic pistols into him for holding up his wallet in the foyer of a Bronx apartment building.

The “Redeem the Dream” rally was organized to protest police brutality and “racial profiling,” the bad habit of many law enforcement jurisdictions of stopping and harassing motorists because of skin color. The March was co-organized by the SCLC, of which Martin had been installed as president—it is the activist arm of what could gently be called our father’s legacy.

Earlier in August, Martin had written a letter, as president and chief executive officer of the SCLC, to Cedric Dempsey, president of the NCAA, National Collegiate Athletic Association, requesting that the NCAA move three of its basketball championship game sites from Atlanta, because Georgia uses the Confederate battle flag as part of its state flag. The current governor of Georgia, Roy Barnes, said, “It’s a difficult issue, about which discussions are ongoing,” and then I thought back to past Georgia governors, from Lester Maddox to Ernest Vandiver to Jimmy Carter. They all had to react one way or another to three men who had been named Martin Luther King. “The right one got the name,” I thought. I’m proud of my brother Martin Luther King III.

On the Friday before the rally, Martin and Rev. Al Sharpton had met with Attorney General Janet Reno at the White House to both ask and demand that the federal government withhold funds from any police department or state highway patrol agency that practices abysmal and often deadly “racial profiling” or shows a pattern of brutality. For example, the Prince George’s County Police Department, in the year leading up to the rally, had shot twelve people, killing five of them, and two other black men had died of injuries incurred while in police custody. A black motorist was five times more likely than a white motorist to be stopped “on suspicion,” or general principles, on the New Jersey Turnpike, and on a stretch of I-95 in Maryland, African Americans, who constituted 17 percent of the motorists, were 56 percent of those stopped and searched. My older brother, Martin, said that we were all “still awaiting the day when we can raise our children to respect police first and fear them last.”

The loudest reaction at the rally was reserved for two women named King on the podium. Bernice, her face a study of burning concentration, got the loudest ovation when she spoke. She has the Way, a knack, the voice, power, the deep spiritual conviction my father had. She was the one who got that best. She introduced our mother to the crowd: “She helped etch my father’s name in the consciousness of the nation. While raising four children, she helped raise a nation.”

Words on a page do not do Bernice’s oratorical power justice. I hope you get a chance to hear her sometime. Somehow, I think maybe you will. Hearing her brought tears to my eyes as I watched these serious activities from three thousand miles away; I called up Yoki, for comfort.

Yoki not only comforted me. She also steered me into acting. It was something I had always been interested in but never felt free to try, being a “son of King.” I was approached by the producers of The Rosa Parks Story, about an acting job, portraying my dad. It was a CBS TV movie, with Angela Bassett in the lead role. The whole experience of it was a real treat.

When I first got out to L.A. I met with one of the producers, Howard Braunstein, and the writer, Paris Qualles. At the time they told me they were developing the story and the script was being written, was almost completed, and would I be interested? Would I consider playing my dad? The person with the expertise was Yoki. I asked her, and she said, “Well, why wouldn’t you?” Before she said that, I was ambivalent about it, torn. They came back to me later and said they had gotten the green light and they really wanted me to consider it. They wanted me to portray him. Nothing big. Mostly it was a speech scene, and a couple of other scenes. But I would have to act. Yoki said it was a good opportunity to test the waters, see if it was something I wanted to do. She didn’t say “to see if it was something I could do.” She assumed that if I wanted to do it, I could. Good kind of sister to have. Initially I had reservations because I never wanted it to appear that I was seeking to portray my dad, didn’t want to seem like I was putting myself on some kind of pedestal, having critics saying and thinking I was being self-serving in some kind of way, just still very sensitive to some of the negative criticisms of the past. Finally I gave myself permission to do it, to explore my options in life like other people do.

I was nervous, but gave it a go. I was to be in about six scenes, and the most moving part of it, I guess, was actually doing one of my dad’s speeches in the church. The film was shot on location in Montgomery in May of 2001, and the big speech scene reenacts one of the first Montgomery Improvement Association mass meetings. It just so happens that that speech is in a recently released Warner book Call to Conscience, and we also have the audio on CD, so I kept listening to that speech my dad gave, over and over and over again. Yoki worked with me on my overall character development, my acting persona, getting into character.

Once I got down there, I didn’t have Yolanda to lean on anymore. I saw Johnnie Carr, one of Rosa Parks’s best friends and the person who became president of the MIA after my dad left, and she was happy to see me. She is elderly now, but she was on the set every day and actually was one of the extras. The woman who was portraying her in the movie, Tonea Stewart, is head of the theater department at Alabama State, and had a recurring role with the late actors Carroll O’Connor and Howard Rollins on the CBS TV series In the Heat of the Night. She also portrayed Samuel L. Jackson’s character’s wife in the movie A Time to Kill. She was very helpful to me as well. She worked with me between scenes, going over the scripts, lines, coaching me.

I really morphed into my father. I felt like I was in his spirit and in his soul, thinking, being in Montgomery in the mid-’50s. What it must have been like for a twenty-six-year-old black man in that space and time, to be thrust into a defining moment of leadership, then to be subjected to the atrocities of the day, with his young wife and a newborn (Yolanda!). All these emotions were at play in me. When I came on the set to deliver the speech, everyone was so supportive, a collective emotional embrace, and you could feel the spirit of community from the crew, the extras, the cast; there were a lot of talented people there and I drew from them all and I imagine I felt the way my dad must have felt at times. I felt uplifted.

Julie Dash (Daughters of the Dust) was the director. And she got it out of me. When I gave the speech, she and then everybody else came up to me afterward and said, “Great job, Dexter!” “Uncanny!” And it was a powerful moment… My friends, there comes a time when people get tired of being trampled over… and we’re not wrong… If we’re wrong, the Supreme Court of this nation is wrong… if we’re wrong, God Almighty is wrong…

It was uncanny. It was powerful. The timbre and tremor of his voice—it just came naturally. That’s what I was saying about being in his spirit. That was the easiest part, giving his speech, believe it or not. The hardest parts were the dialogue scenes, when I had to try and mediate a disagreement among the members. But I got through it, with the help of Julie Dash and Tonea Stewart. Angela Bassett would come over from time to time and whisper in my ear, tell me what to focus on, how to focus, giving me tips to try this or that. It was a great experience.

I have to give credit to Yolanda. She was always obviously the actress. When we were young, she inspired us to pursue it. We used to go with her on a regular basis to an acting workshop in Atlanta run by the parents of Eric and Julia Roberts. Yolanda was part of their controversial production The Owl and the Pussy Cat. She played a prostitute. Very controversial, for Yolanda. Dr. King’s daughter, playing a prostitute? I remember so well. There was an uproar at Ebenezer. Granddaddy was still alive then, and preaching, that’s how long ago this was, and he wasn’t going to the performance because the church members were ganging up on him about it. But Mother said, “You know, she really would be hurt if you don’t come.” He showed up at the last minute and Yoki was surprised, and pleased, and gave a good performance, and afterward he came over to her and said, “You know, it wasn’t that bad. You did really good, girl!”

As for me, the experience was very pleasant. I think acting has possibilities.

There is also a CBS miniseries about my mother’s life being written by Tina Andrews, and another HBO movie is being developed after the success HBO had with Boycott, the film starring Jeffrey Wright as Dad. I’ve developed a good relationship with Colin Callendar, head of HBO Films. He feels he has found a way to tell some of these stories in a manner more contemporary, so they aren’t considered so much of a history lesson, and therefore boring to young folks. Julie Dash raved about Boycott. She loved it. So I think more and more people in the film industry are seeing the dramatic value in these stories from the era of the Civil Rights Movement. There’s a lot there.

The King Center facilities, along with 234 Sunset, Mother’s home, our home, are also in stasis, much like the papers. The National Park Service would at some point like to turn 234 Sunset into a National Historic Site.

I sit on the beach on the Pacific and wonder if I’ll ever understand the ironies of life, or if I’m supposed to. Here comes that little boy again. He is quiet this time. “Maybe you’re just supposed to live—let the chips, double standards, mistakes, and bad guys doing good things and vice versa just… fall where they may,” I say to him.

There are still forces out there that do not want what’s best for Dad’s legacy, or for my family to be in any way comfortable; they want to take everything away. They believe they’re entitled to their viewpoints of our father, yet we can’t have a viewpoint about our own father.

What would you have done? For me it’s been a burden, because…

I don’t know what to do.

I wasn’t so wedded to any one course of action. If my father’s wishes were to turn his bequest over to the people and the jackals, so be it, let them fight it out, even though I have a feeling I know who would win a battle for the meat of his heritage and legacy. Jackals win scavenging contests. If I knew he wanted that—so be it. But he didn’t say that, and his conduct in documenting, copyrighting, and licensing his work and litigating to protect it said the opposite. He didn’t get to the Promised Land with us on a physical plane, but we can still hear him: “I’m telling you tonight that we as a people will get to the Promised Land!” I can never know for certain what he would have wished. If he’d been allowed to remain in my life longer, maybe I’d be more sure.

It has always been a difficult emotional and psychological issue, and I find that people will always bring it up for us to ponder. I talk to Yoki about this all the time. She’s why I might be alone sometimes but never lonely. Sometimes I wish my parents had raised the kind of children who wouldn’t care what people said. I want to do the right thing. He’s not here to consult with me. But my sisters and brother are. I feel I have an obligation to uphold them, what he upheld. So I try. In the end, that’s all we did, as his children. We tried.

My siblings and I are still waiting for the moving of documents, the King papers, his documentation, in his own hand, to an appropriate custodian. The Library of Congress has approached us about acquiring the papers. It was always contingent on Congress’s approvals. Basically the deal got tabled. The Senate approved it, authorized the Library to enter into negotiations, but the House did not. The bill never made it to the floor. There was a lot of debate and filibuster over the papers—whether they were worth it, if the price was too high. A political football. In the end, raising of the funds was not approved, so discussions broke down. The pending legislation is really nonsubstantive. There are two parts to the bill, legislative and appropriation. Without funds, it’s de facto, a nonissue. The Senate voted unanimously to support the legislation. But the House… it got bogged down.

This is an era of transference—transferring the legacy that should be a part of the American landscape into the American landscape. Some may see irony in this as well, that a jury in Shelby County found that a onetime café owner and “the government at several levels” conspired to assassinate Dad. Some may see it as justice.

All of this represents my father’s ascension into the mainstream of American history, into the pantheon of honored American lives, and therefore into American society and life. As an African American, I am proud that my father has been receiving accolades and recognition traditionally reserved for a more “elite” class of non–African Americans.

We give Mother all the credit. She did all of the things that people acknowledge or attach to greatness: lobbying to get a King holiday, lobbying to build a nonprofit living memorial, striving to create a permanent place where people could embrace, appreciate, and learn from my father’s achievements. If she had not been a goodwill ambassador, a steward, a torchbearer, my father’s work might have largely died with him. Without her popularizing his legacy the whole thing would have faded into memory. No matter what J. Edgar Hoover’s opinions of my father were back in the ’60s, no matter whose hands were behind his assassination, my father has been recognized as a great American by the American institutions, by the federal government itself, which is, ideally, only an extension of the people. All the people. Even the flawed people. The shining eyes of Mother mean the people have some of their validation. My father will be etched in the history books and in people’s minds forever.

He may not have gotten there with us physically—but he did get there with us in spirit.

Atlanta, Georgia.

“If I can have your attention. At this time I want to introduce to you my cousin; I grew up with Dexter Scott King, who is the president of the Martin Luther King Center; he has taken the time to come out to personally greet us; so let’s give him a hand, Dexter King…”

“I want to first thank Reverend Vernon King, my first cousin, somebody I hold near and dear to my heart. We grew up together. I won’t tell you about any of those stories. Because if I told you, you might ask him to step down… But we’re all a step down from Dr. King, aren’t we? And we can’t help that, can we? But look at it this way. He does give us a goal, something to aspire to.

“I want to first thank you, then welcome you here to the King Center and the King Historic Preservation District on behalf of the Park Service, which operates this facility in a fine fashion; what you’ll be seeing as you go through this historic site is American history; you’ll see the tomb of Dr. King, my father; historic Ebenezer Baptist Church; the birth home, where my father grew up. I want to say I think it’s important we as a community take the time out to really understand what the King legacy represents. Particularly for the youth, you who may not have been around, or aren’t old enough to appreciate what the Civil Rights Movement was about, what evolution of history brought us to, in pointing us to where we are today, where we might be tomorrow.

“There’s still a lot of work that has to be done. This memorial, this institution, is actually a living and breathing institution. You are the institution, and so am I. As long as you and I are living and breathing, then we might become better, help each other become better, help America become a better place. We might not think so now, but you, even you, as young as you are, one day you won’t be so young, and you’ll have children of your own. And they might not be perfect children, they might be flawed children, they may end up being children who had to deal with tragic, flawed circumstances, but they will be your children, ours, and you and we will want the best for them. So there’s still work to do, programs to enact to make sure that people understand and the future public is educated about the life, work, and philosophy of Martin Luther King, Jr.

“Now, we’re not trying to give him all the credit. Many others contributed and gave their time and talents and lives to the cause to make sure that all people would be seen as having an equal opportunity in this society. So in many ways, my father is symbolic of many other names and people. In honoring him, you honor them all. So on behalf of the board of directors of the King Center, me, and my mother, who could not be here, but who some of you have seen or met before, I welcome you, welcome you wholeheartedly, thank you for your interest and time; to Reverend King, thank you for your leadership. We hope you all will enjoy your stay here. While it may be that shortly you leave here, walk away with a sense of purpose and fulfillment; continue to encourage others, who may not have the time or may not have the ability to be here, to make the trek, to make the journey to learn more about our history. Remember this great legacy that we all are a part of. I apologize for not being able to spend more time with you, but if you can feel the spirit of my father here, then me not being around will be no great loss to anybody.

“My job was to see to it that you got to him. As you go through you’ll see that there are a lot of people from throughout America and the world, and the future world, that are here with you, and will be spending time with you, in this and the world we share, so I again thank you and I hope you enjoy the rest of your stay. May God continue to bless each and every one of you.

“During my tenure over the last eight years as the King Center president, I have been fortunate to have had innumerable inspirational moments. However, I will take this opportunity only to mention a couple of them. Two of them involved former president Bill Clinton. The first in 1994 when President Clinton asked my brother and I, along with Ted and Ethel Kennedy, to fly aboard Air Force One to Indianapolis, Indiana, to break ground for a Peace Memorial dedicated to the memories of Robert F. Kennedy and my father. This memorial is located on the spot where Robert Kennedy spoke on the night my father was killed. He was campaigning in the African-American community and calmed the crowd with his now famous remarks. These remarks were credited with preventing rioting in Indianapolis while other cities burned.

“The second incident was accompanying my mother to the White House for a State dinner honoring former South African president Nelson Mandela. This historic event inspired me because of what it represented in terms of paying tribute to the liberation of a man and his people.

“On another occasion I had the privilege of meeting His Holiness the Dalai Lama on his visit to the King Center. I remember my sister Yolanda commenting on how his spirit reminded her of my father’s.

“I also met with Israeli former prime minister and Nobel laureate Shimon Peres on his visit to our Center, where he presented me with a silver plate with the dove of peace etched upon it. We discussed the importance of using my father’s principles of non-violence to bring about peace in the Middle East. I truly hope and pray that someday there will be peace in that region, and both Jews and Palestinians can live together as sisters and brothers.”

The Kings, flawed like everybody else, are good people.

I gladly face that now, in addition to the rest of what I inherited, as part of my obligation and birthright. Now I have to at least try to identify and find and attend to my own little dreams, because the legacy, obligation, birthright, inheritance, responsibility is not my only allotment, not all that I am, does not solely define who or what I can be. I finally figured out why I had always asked, “Why?” I never finished the question—why was this happening to me? I had always waited for things to happen to me, instead of doing things myself. I realize how much has to be done in terms of bringing this legacy—and myself—full circle. What is still missing today is the spiritual element that really causes his message to live, in terms of breaking down barriers in the mind, believing you can overcome obstacles, believing we can get along, not have to solve our conflicts with violence.

It’s funny, every year we have our King celebration, we get letters and hear speeches from politicians; you hear speeches from senators, congressmen, talking about how great Dr. King was to this nation, how he led the nation out of racial strife, used nonviolence, how he should be applauded, but the same people will turn around and vote to start a war without diplomacy or other means first. So it’s almost like people recognized it in him, in my father, but still don’t want to apply it for themselves. Have I sorted out the role of spirituality—faith—in my own life?

I have decided to seek a deeper level of life. Faith has really been a key ingredient in my sustenance. I’ve done a lot of work. I mean internally. The process has been very therapeutic for me out here. Being on the ocean. Being alone. Being at peace with that. Recovery. Recovery is the word I’m looking for. The recovery is almost complete.

I could not have endured all of the ups and downs, the tragedies, controversies, conflicts, trials and tribulations, if it were not for my faith in God, believing in a higher power that ultimately the things we cannot see shape us; faith being defined as the evidence of things unseen, and uncontrollable even, when you truly surrender yourself to it. There’s really a point of submission where you say, “I’ve done everything humanly possible, and it’s out of my hands. It’s bigger than me.” That’s when you submit, and know everything’s going to be all right. “Let go and let God.” That’s what I embrace now. It’s not my nature; I am controlling in terms of wanting to know reasons why. I’m skeptical, but I don’t let it drive me; I’m cautious by nature, a lot has to do with the experiences that shaped me. But I’ve thrown caution to the winds about spirituality.

My father once said, “Unearned suffering is redemptive.” If that is true—and life has taught me it is—then he earned his historical place a thousand times over. Not only did he die a violent death diametrically opposed to his ideals, not only did he die martyred to a great cause, but also his widow suffered, his children were at times considered pariahs… but that’s all gone now.

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.