Yolanda King Recalls Father As Two Men There Was A Civil Rights Leaders And ‘Daddy’
She was 12 years old when her father died.
Yolanda King, the eldest child of the slain civil rights leader, was watching TV at home when she saw her father’s image flash across the screen.
“He looked like he was far away,” said King, recalling that fateful April day in 1968 when her father was assassinated in Memphis. “I saw the bullets on TV … and I asked God not to let my father die.”
Yolanda King, who spoke Thursday at The Met, didn’t cry much until she was 30. That was the year the nation first celebrated Martin Luther King Jr. Day.
“I would’ve rather taken him to dinner,” King said during an interview before her speech. “I was angry, consumed with sadness. I missed my father so much.”
Since King’s death, Yolanda King has had two images of her father: There’s Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., the “God-sent man” who had the dream of equality for all; and “Daddy,” the loving father who taught her to swim, the same good-humored preacher who joked at the dinner table that he would die before he turned 40.
Now 39 - the same age that her father was killed - Yolanda King continues to spread his message.
“We have not learned the simple art of living together as brothers and sisters,” she told more than 500 people Thursday night. “Our challenge is to be willing and prepared … to include the voices of all our fellow citizens in all aspects of American life. We must keep reaching for the dream.”
King, also an actress, told stories of the civil rights era - a time when dogs were allowed to attack African Americans, when city officials called blacks “Negroes” and tried to prevent them from marching.
It was her mother, Coretta Scott King, who encouraged her to pursue acting, Yolanda King said in an interview before the lecture. A concert singer, Coretta Scott King raised money in the ‘60s to support her husband’s civil rights work, Yolanda King recalled. While her father’s memory influenced her to become involved in human rights, it was her mother’s support that led her to appear in a number of movies including “Death of a Prophet” and “Ghost of Mississippi.”
In an impassioned speech Thursday that reminded some of her father, Yolanda King again appealed for action.
The nation has made great strides since the ‘60s, she said, but people still suffer from poverty and illiteracy. They still live in a violent world.
To achieve her father’s dream, she asked audience members to get involved - to vote, to put pressure on officials, to make multiculturalism a required college course.
There are three kinds of people in the world, she said - the few who make things happen, some who watch things happen and the many who wonder, “What in the world happened?”
“What kind of person are you?” she asked. “It’s time to make a choice. … Don’t just sit back and criticize and complain, go back in there and make it work. Get out of our apathy.”
, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Color Photo