AP Interview: MLK III feels closer to siblings since mom's death

<p>Before their mother's death, the children of Martin Luther King Jr. and Coretta Scott King sometimes didn't talk and were divided over the future of The King Center, which their mother founded to honor their father's legacy and recently has fallen into disrepair.</p><p>However, in a sit-down interview with The Associated Press on Friday, Martin Luther King III said he and his brother and two sisters have grown closer since their mother's death in late January. He said getting her affairs in order has forced them to talk more.</p><p>"We're working to close out mom's estate, so we have to work together," King III told AP. "In the past, there could be times when we didn't talk, but now, that can't be the case."</p><p>Still, King said they have yet to address the rift over the future of The King Center in Atlanta, which holds documents from the civil rights movement and the tombs of the Nobel Peace Prize winner and now his wife.</p><p>A month before their mother died of complications from a stroke and ovarian cancer, King and sister the Rev. Bernice King held a news conference to publicly split with their sister, Yolanda, and brother, Dexter, in opposition to a proposed sale of the Martin Luther King Center for Nonviolent Social Change to the National Park Service.</p><p>Martin and Bernice King said they believed a sale _ which the center's board voted to pursue _ would compromise the center's independent voice. All four of the Kings' children are board members, and Dexter King is currently chairman of the board.</p><p>Still, Martin Luther King III said he and his siblings have never fought about the issue.</p><p>"We have never been at odds, per se," he said. "We have disagreed on issues."</p><p>Board members who support the sale _ including former U.N. Ambassador Andrew Young, who served along with King in the civil rights movement _ have said transferring the center to the Park Service would let the family focus less on grounds maintenance and more on spreading King's message of nonviolence.</p><p>Talk of a sale arose after a 2005 Park Service report showed that the King Center needed $11.6 million in repairs. The report cited leaks in the reflective pool, collapsed drainage pipes and problems with loose and exposed wiring.</p><p>The National Park Service already owns the King National Historic Site across the street and maintains Historic Ebenezer Baptist Church, where King preached from 1960 to 1968, as well as the King birth home and the visitors' center.</p><p>Martin Luther King III said the family has not revisited the idea of selling the center since their mother's death.</p><p>"That issue, we still have the same position on," he said. "I assume they still do, but we really haven't talked about it in depth. The center's going to continue to do what it's doing."</p><p>King III, who has served as president and CEO of the King Center and also led the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, which his father co-founded in 1957, has started his own Atlanta-based non-profit organization called Realizing the Dream, which is his continuation of his parents' legacy. However, he stressed he has no plans to abandon the King Center.</p><p>"I'm still a board member, so I'll be involved," King said. "I certainly will have a voice."</p><p>----</p><p>On The Net:</p><p>HASH(0x1cdccb8)</p><p>HASH(0x1cdeff4)</p>

http://accesswdun.com/article/2006/12/111299