It’s never easy for the King family to come to Memphis.
Martin Luther King III was only 10 when his father was assassinated at the Lorraine Motel. It would be another 40 years before he would visit the site to place a memorial wreath.
This week, he’s back with his family: his wife Arndrea Waters King and daughter Yolanda Renee King. “This is the first time that we’ve done this as a family,” Arndrea says. “We felt that it was important to do so this year and we wanted to acknowledge those people that we feel are continuing, in their own way, the work of Martin Luther King Jr.”
As difficult as it is to make the journey, it’s also a testament to that work that compels the King family to gather here and encourage the efforts of those who share a dream of battling the “three evils of society: racism, poverty, and violence.”
On Thursday, April 4th, the National Civil Rights Museum will welcome the King family to the event “Remembering MLK: The Man. The Movement. The Moment.” The commemoration will be in the museum’s courtyard at 4 p.m. with a musical prelude followed by the commemorative service at 4:30 p.m. Mr. King will deliver the keynote address with a focus on the most significant social justice issues facing the nation today. (The event will be streamed via the museum’s website, YouTube, and Facebook platforms.)
The Drum Major Institute (DMI) is the nonprofit founded by Dr. King in 1961 to pursue social justice. Arndrea King is president of DMI and Mr. King is chairman and they are bringing the cause to the National Civil Rights Museum. They are also bringing their daughter, Yolanda Renee King, who is already making her mark as an activist and children’s book author.
Arndrea says that the need for social change is just as compelling as it ever was, and in some ways more so. “We feel that in some ways there’s a backward movement from the dream,” she says. “Laws are being passed where our daughter — Dr. King’s only grandchild — has fewer rights now at 16 than the day that she was born.”
The occasion of the 56th anniversary of Dr. King’s death gives DMI the opportunity to remind the nation of the continuing struggle. “It’s very important for us to be there to be assembled and a reminder of the sacrifice that so many people made,” Arndrea says, “but also to rededicate ourselves and hopefully for all people of goodwill to join us and rededicate themselves to the eradication of racism and bigotry and poverty and violence, and to dedicate themselves to peace and justice and equity.”
DMI will announce a number of grants for work being done by several organizations around the country toward that end. Those groups are working in various areas, such as voting rights, justice inequity, and more. Arndrea says, “We feel people are on the front lines of the same issues that Martin Luther King Jr. worked on. And I always remind people that he told us to give us the ballot before he told us about his dream. It’s also important to remember that Dr. King was not only a scholar and minister, but an activist. He saw what was wrong and helped organize change.”
With 2024 a major election year and with the nation seriously divided, Mr. King reflects on what more needs to be done. “It is daunting because of the mechanisms that are in place to divide,” he says. “That could be social media to some degree, that could be some elements of mainstream media and obviously a lot of individuals who may be influencers. Certainly, the megaphone that the former president has is probably doing the most damage, and people seem to be in denial or blind to it, seeing only what they think are the good things. We have to be very thoughtful and very direct intentional is what I would say.”
Mr. King believes the country wants to move in a different direction. “Even the people who are angry and frustrated and hostile at everyone — I can’t believe you want to stay that way. That is just not who we are as human beings. When a crisis comes, we find a way to come together, and I want us to operate the way we operate in those crises. We don’t ask, well, who is the victim? Who’s in trouble? What caused it? It doesn’t matter what your sexual orientation is, it doesn’t matter whether you are a Christian or not, it doesn’t matter. All we come to do is to help you get out of that situation and help you get to the other side.”
What he hopes for, and is working toward, is creating a climate where there can be discussions without rancor, but instead, “with an understanding that there are far more things that we have in common than we have apart. We call ourselves the United States of America, but we are not operating as a United States. We are operating as a fragmented, dysfunctional, very tragic society.”
And here, he cites his father. “My dad would’ve said that we must learn nonviolence or we may face nonexistence. We are not engaging in nonviolence and where we are, it’s not promoted. We must teach how to live together without destroying person or property and how to live in a civil society. You have to intentionally do that.”
Sometimes, though, it’s difficult. “That may be part of why my wife and I and our daughter chose to come to Memphis on this actual anniversary. It is a hard kind of scenario for us. But I also remember that Dad was killed on April 4, 1968, and then on April 8th, my mom and the three older ones of us, my late sister Yolanda and my late brother Dexter and I, along with Mom all came to Memphis for her to continue in the tradition of my father leading that demonstration so that sanitation workers could be treated with dignity and respect and paid a fair and decent wage.”
The involvement of Mr. King and his siblings, thanks to their mother, Coretta Scott King, was a lesson that continues today in that young people are a force to be brought in to help with the struggle. The Martin Luther King III Foundation has begun a five-year initiative called Realize the Dream that involves youth. As Arndrea says, “We’re going to ignite a movement where young people will come together, stand together, work together, serve together in whatever capacity that they choose, and collectively commit and complete 100 million hours of service by the 100th birthday of Martin Luther King Jr. It’s very important for young people, particularly those who were born post-Civil Rights Movement and went through the pandemic and racial awakening — they’ve also now gone through the backlash of that. They can see how they can be a part of doing something to create the world in which they want to live in a very tangible and real way. Dr. King said that everyone can be great because everyone can serve.”
