Update: Now Martin Luther King Jr’s children have taken their fight over his estate to court

King’s legacy has not been enhanced by the squabbling amongst his four children – pitting two of them who regard it as their inheritance to use for their personal benefit against the other two who regard it as a public trust for them to manage as zealous trustees.

In fact, here’s how Martin Luther King III – who along with his sister Bernice – argued against the sale of MLK’s papers, writings and recorded speeches:

“Tearing the center’s unique and essential elements apart – its physical memorial and its living legacy – only diminishes them both, thereby weakening, not strengthening, the cause to which my father and mother gave so much.”

Unfortunately, he was overruled by Dexter King, Chairman of the King Center in Atlanta where these national treasures were archived – who along with the other sister Yolanda – betrayed their father’s legacy for a reported $30 million last June.

Of course, if Dexter had one scintilla of appreciation for MLK’s familiar Biblical allusions, he would have settled for 29 just to avoid fated comparisons to Judas who betrayed Jesus Christ for 30 pieces of silver….

[Mall at last! Mall at last! Thank God Almighty, a black is on the Mall at last, The iPINIONS Journal, November 14, 2006] 

The above is part of a sad note I appended to an article heralding the groundbreaking for the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial on the Mall in Washington, DC.  But I never thought this King family feud would escalate to the point it has today. 

I suppose it’s unfair to expect any of MLK’s children to live up to his legacy.  Frankly, I don’t even know what that would entail:  competing with Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson for the title of black civil rights leader?

What is fair, however, is to expect them to conduct their lives in ways that do not bring dishonor and shame upon that legacy.  Unfortunately, they have failed to even live up to this modest expectation.

Because, as if fighting over their father’s intellectual property were not embarrassing enough, they’re now fighting over the real and other personal property in their parent’s estate.

In fact, MLK III and Bernice filed a lawsuit on Thursday in which they allege that Dexter – in his capacity as president of the Martin Luther King Jr corporation – has misappropriated a third of their parent’s estate “for his own benefit.” 

(Yolanda, Dexter’s cohort in exploiting their father’s legacy for all it’s worth, died suddenly last year at 51.)

In addition, they claim that management of the corporation is in “complete disarray” and that Dexter has refused to provide them with “information and documentation concerning the operation, actions and financial affairs of the corporation to which they were entitled.”

Never mind that, just like any family dispute over money that ends up in court, this lawsuit will do more to air more of the King family’s dirty laundry than to settle their financial affairs. 

And even though MLK was a womanizer who did not conduct his personal life in an exemplary manner, he must be rolling over in his grave at the public spectacle his kids are now making of his public legacy.

Stay tuned….

In other news

Magazine cover depicts Obama and wife as terrorists

There’s quite a lot of media buzz today about a patently offensive painting on the cover of a national magazine, The New Yorker. It depicts Barack and Michelle Obama as Muslim terrorists occupying the White House – complete with Barack in Muslim garb, Michelle dressed like 1960s Black-Panther radical Angela Davis (with a fake Afro and machine gun strapped over her shoulder), a picture of Osama bin Laden (instead of George Washington) on the wall, and the American flag burning in the fireplace for good measure. 

All of this buzz, however, begs a critical question:  If it’s so obvious that the editors’ primary intent was “to generate buzz” (and sales), then why are so many TV stations, newspapers and blogs helping them perpetrate this crass and perverse commercial act; i.e., by showing and republishing this offensive magazine cover? 

For the record, the editors claim that they published it to debunk dogged belief amongst some Americans that Obama is a Muslim with ties to terrorist organizations.  But this claim is as specious as it is misguided. 

After all, nobody with half a brain holds such beliefs.  More to the point, none of the racial and religious bigots who hold them will ever read this magazine’s tortured explanation of its “satirical” cover.  Instead, they will see Obama being depicted as described and simply think that it confirms their ignorant beliefs about him.

That said, I know enough about The New Yorker  to know that the editors of this liberal magazine intended Obama no political harm.  In fact, I have no doubt they will heartily endorse him for president. 

But here is Obama’s cool, calm and collected reaction to this unwitting insult:

I know it was The New Yorker’s attempt at satire … I don’t think they were entirely successful at it. But you know what, it’s a cartoon…

One of the things when you’re running for president for almost two years is you get a pretty thick skin. And I’ve seen and heard a lot worse. I do think that in attempting to satirize something they probably fueled some misconceptions about me instead.

But…ultimately it’s just a cartoon and its not [what] the American people are spending their time thinking about.

NOTE:  As far satire, Jon Stewart of the Daily Show was far more successful.  He joked that he doesn’t know why Obama is so upset about this cover because he thought only Muslim terrorists got upset over cartoons….

Related Articles:
Mall at last!…a black’s on the Mall at last!
A national farewell to Coretta Scott King
MLK was also a womanizer…So what?!
Muslims erupt in violence over cartoons of Muhammad