Yolanda King: Difference between revisions

Yolanda King
File:Yolanda King at 16.png King at age sixteen on the cover of Jet.
Born	Yolanda Denise King November 17, 1955 Montgomery, Alabama, U.S.
Died	May 15, 2007(2007-05-15) (aged 51) Santa Monica, California, U.S.
Nationality	American
Alma mater	New York University Marywood University
Occupation	Activist
Parent(s)	Martin Luther King, Jr. Coretta Scott King
Relatives	Martin Luther King III (brother) Dexter Scott King (brother) Bernice King (sister)

Yolanda Denise King (November 17, 1955 – May 15, 2007) was the first-born child of Coretta Scott King and civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Her younger siblings are Martin Luther King III, Dexter Scott King, and Bernice Albertine King. King was commonly referred to as "Yoki", a name which was used to refer to her during her lifetime. She was twelve years old when her father was assassinated. She was credited with having his sense of humor.

King received publicity for having appeared in the play "The Owl and the Pussycat" due to playing opposite a white lead. She graduated from Grady High School at the age of sixteen, and went Smith College where she was subject to some criticism and remarks about her father. She decided to learn about him, by reading his books and formed her own opinion about him. She became a spokesman for her father's legacy, and was disenchanted with the knowledge of children born after his time not knowing as much as she believed they should.

King founded Higher Ground Productions, referred to as a "gateway for inner peace, unity ad global transformation."She supported a retrial of James Earl Ray, and publicly stated that she did not hate him. After receiving a master's degree in theater from New York University and an Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters from Marywood University, she became more active in acting and performed in plays as well. She encouraged races to come together after and before the September 11 attacks occurred and spoke for her mother at the time of her illness that would eventually lead to her death.

She supported her brother Dexter throughout some legal troubles regarding their other two siblings and continued to speak for peace and equality in her final years, which she exercised for bisexuals most prominently. King died on May 15, 2007 when she collapsed and could not be revived. After her death, her family released the statement: "She was an actress, author, producer, advocate for peace and nonviolence, who was known and loved for her motivational and inspirational contributions to society”.

Early life

File:Martin Luther King and Yolanda King, 1964.jpg

King with her father, Martin Luther King, Jr. in 1964

Born in Montgomery, Alabama to Martin Luther King, Jr., and Coretta Scott King, she was only two weeks old when Rosa Parks refused to give her seat on a bus. Even in her infancy, Yolanda was faced with the threats her father was given when they extended to his family. In 1956, a number of supremacists bombed the King household there. Yolanda and her mother were not harmed. She and her mother, at the time of the bomb's detonation, were in the rear section of their home. She kept her father busy when walking on their home's floors. While her mother liked her name, her father had reservations about naming her "Yolanda" due to the possibility the name would be mispronounced. During the course of her lifetime, King's name was mispronounced to the point where it bothered her.

Martin Luther King III described his role as the second-born of their family as having made Yolanda jealous, and that she was always overcommitted but "still found time to get to the things that were most important to her". Her mother referred to her as being a confidant during the time following her husband's assassination. She complimented her mother on her achievements, which prompted her mother to refer to her in a positive light as well. Martin Luther King, Jr., her father, taught her how to swim when she was four and when he once slept, she and Bernice, her sister, poured water down his ear. The two thought it would be comedic, but Martin did not and spanked them. He taught her and her brother about sex as well.

When asked by a young boy what she remembered most about her father, she admitted that her father was not able to spend much time with her and the rest of her family. But when he did, she would play and swim with him. King cried when she found out her father had been imprisoned. Her father admitted that he had never adjusted to bringing up children under "inexplicable conditions". When she was 6 years old, she was saddened by remarks of her classmates that her father was a "jailbird" and wanted to go to Funtown, but was not able to due to her ethnicity. She did not understand, and asked her mother Coretta why she was not able to go. When she replied "Your father is going to jail so that you can go to Funtown." after numerous attempts to explain the issue to her, Yolanda finally understood. After having not seen her father for five weeks while he was in jail, she met with him alongside both of her brothers for less than half an hour. Her father also addressed the issue himself, as he told her that there were many whites that were not were not racist that wanted her to go while there were many that were that did not want her to go. However, her father reassured her as she began to cry, that she was "just as good" as anyone who went to Funtown, and that one day in the "not too distant future", she was going to be able to go to "any town" along with "all of God's children".

On November 22, 1963, when U.S. President John F. Kennedy was assassinated, she learned of his death at school. When she returned home, she rushed to confront her mother about his death, and even ignored her grandfather Martin Luther King, Sr. to tell her mother that she had heard and that they would not get their "freedom now". Her mother tried to debunk this, and insisted that they would still get it. King and her brother Martin Luther King III were enrolled in the fall of 1965 to Spring Street Elementary School. In 1966, she listened to a speech her father did when he was addressing a rally. At the age of eight after writing her first play, she enrolled in, at the time, the only drama school integrated. The head of the school was Walt Roberts, father of the actress Julie Roberts. She began speaking at the age of ten, and even filled in for her parents on occasion. Her memories of her father prompted her to state that he "believed we were all divine. I have chosen to continue to promote 'we're one, the oneness of us, and shine the spotlight,' as my father did."

Father's death

On the evening of April 4, 1968, Yolanda returned with her mother from Easter-dress shopping when Jesse Jackson called the family, and reported that her father had been shot. Soon after, she heard of the event when a news bulletin popped up while she was washing dishes. While the other children of the civil rights leader were trying to find out what it meant, Yolanda already knew. She ran out of the room, screamed "I don't want to hear it," and prayed that he would not die. Four days later, she and her brothers accompanied their mother to Memphis City Hall on her own terms, as she and her brothers had wanted to come. King was visited by Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis before her father's funeral. In regards to the possibility that her father could have been saved, King said she doubted that her father could have lived much longer, coupled by all the stress he had during his tenure as a leader of the Civil Rights Movement. She did admit, that had he lived or he been listened to more, "we would be a far better place." King openly stated years later that she did not hate James Earl Ray. During the family's interview with Mike Wallace in December 1968, Yolanda was introduced by her mother and revealed her role with keeping the family together. Being the oldest, she had to watch her three younger siblings; Martin Luther King III, Dexter King and Bernice King and referred to three as independent when she watched them whenever their mother went out of town. Sometime after Martin Luther King's assassination, King told her mother "Mom, I'm not going to cry because my dad is not dead. He may be dead physically, and one day I am going to see him again".

High school

File:Yolanda King at 16.png

King at sixteen, April 6, 1972 Jet cover

Activities

At Grady High School, King was president of her sophomore and junior class, and vice president of her senior class. She ranked in the top 10 percent of her class. She was active in student government and drama. On April 4, 1970, the second anniversary of her father's death, she and her sister Bernice attended their grandfather Martin Luther King, Sr.'s silent prayer for their father at his gravesite. When she was sixteen she received attention in Jet in 1972, where she talked about what her father's famous name was doing for her life. In the interview with the magazine, She related how people expected her to be like her father and referred to it as one of the "handicaps" of being his child. She recalled having met a friend that was scared of being acquainted with her, because of her father's identity and expressed her thoughts in the colleges she wished to attend.

At that time, King still did not know what she wanted to do with her life, but acknowledged that many wanted her to be a preacher. Her inclinations were driven to be artistic, which did not suit the political aspects of her father's life.

Uncle's death

On July 21, 1969, King's uncle and father's brother Alfred Daniel Williams King was found dead in the swimming pool of his home. His youngest two children, Esther and Vernon, were vacationing with King and her family in Jamaica when they heard of his death.

Play controversy

She was subject to controversy when she appeared in the play "The Owl and the Pussycat" because she was costarring a white male lead. Though her mother kept her naïve to the controversies so she could "fulfill [her] objective, which was to do the play", that did not stop her from learning of the negativity implemented from her role years later. Her grandfather Martin Luther King, Sr. initially was not going to go to her performance due to opposition by locals, but changed his mind afterward. During a sunday visit to Church, King was forced to stand before the congregation and explain her actions.

College

File:Yolanda King Smith College, 1976 Yearbook.png

Smith College yearbook photo, 1976

She graduated from high school two months later, and went to Smith College. She took classes taught by Manning Marable and Johnnella Butler, and became satisfied with her choice of a college. But after finishing her sophomore year and returning home so she could work over the summer, her grandmother Alberta Williams King was killed on June 30, 1974. She was also subject to some harassment by her classmates, describing it as the "era when students were making demands and many black students were closer to the teachings of Malcolm X, or what they thought were his teachings." The children referred to her father as a "Uncle Tom" and was scared that he would go down in history as such. She reflected "I had never read his works. I was just someone who loved someone, and I knew he had done great things and now people didn't appreciate it." She proceeded to read his books, and started to believe that her father had been correct all along.

When asked about what pressures emerged from being a daughter of Martin Luther King, Jr., King stated that "as soon as people heard me speak, they would compare me to my father ... My siblings had the same kind of pressure. There was such a needlike they were looking for a miracle." At the time of her turmoil in college, King recalled having not known Malcolm X and "didn't understand daddy, so here I was trying to defend something I thought I knew about but really didn't." On April 4, 1975, King joined her family in placing azaleas over her father's crypt, marking the seventh anniversary of his assassination.

Adult life

King was a human rights activist and actress. She stated in 2000 to USA Today, that her acting "allowed me to find an expression and outlet for the pain and anger I felt about losing my father,". Her mother's support helped in starting her acting career. An alumna of Smith College after graduating in 1976, she was the subject of an essay among the "remarkable women" during a celebration during the college's one hundred and twenty-fifth year and she was a member of the Board of Directors of the Martin Luther King Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change, Inc. (the official national memorial to her father) and was founding Director of the King Center's Cultural Affairs Program. She served on the Partnership Council of Habitat for Humanity, was the first national Ambassador for the American Stroke Association's "Power to End Stroke" Campaign, a member of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, a sponsor of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom, Human Rights Campaign, and held a lifetime membership in the NAACP. King received a Bachelor of Arts degree from Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts, a master's degree in theater from New York University, and an Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters from Marywood University.

In 1978 she starred as Rosa Parks in the TV miniseries King (based on her father's life and released on DVD in 2005). King was a spokeswoman for the national stroke awareness association. In 1979, Yolanda met Attallah Shabazz (the eldest daughter of Malcolm X), and both were worried that they would not like each other due their fathers. Instead, the two quickly found common ground in their activism and in their positive outlook towards the future of African-Americans. In the 1980s, King and Attallah Shabazz co-founded Nucleus, a theater company. When presenting herself in 1980 to the GSA staff members, she stated: "Jim Crow [segregation] is dead, but his sophisticated cousin James Crow, Esq., is very much alive. We must cease our premature celebration [about civil rights already achieved] and get back to the struggle. We cannot be satisfied with a few black faces in high places when millions of our people have been locked out." She received a standing ovation afterwards, alongside a thunderous applause.

In 1984, she was arrested in the view of her mother for having protested in front of the South African Embassy, in support of anti-apartheid views. It was the first time she had ever been arrested. She showed dissatisfaction with her "generation" on January 20, 1985, and referred to them as being "laid-back and unconcerned", and "forgetting the sacrifices that allowed them to get away with being so laid-back". On January 7, 1986, Yolanda, her brother Martin Luther King III and her sister Bernice were arrested for "disorderly conduct" by officers responding to a call from a Winn Dixie market, of which had an ongoing protest against it since September of the previous year. She celebrated her father's holiday in January 16, 1986 and attended a breakfast in Chicago with Mayor Harold Washington. She stated that her father had a "magnificent dream", but admitted that "it still is only a dream."

King started Black History Month of 1986 by giving a speech in Santa Ana, which called for the study of African-American history to not "relegated to the shortest and coldest month of the year." After having been a public speaker for over twenty years, Yolanda recalled her talents having "happened very naturally growing up in a house like mine". She also found "great irony" in President Ronald Reagan having signed a bill to make Martin Luther King, Jr. Day a national holiday.

She kicked off Martin Luther King, Jr. Day by starting a weeklong celebration on January 12, 1987 and talked to students about opportunities that they had at that point which their parents and grandparents did not have.

Smith College speech, 1989

She returned to Smith College on January 26, 1989. There, she gave a speech and made references to her past difficult experiences when first coming to the college.

It is a real thrill to be back home. When I was here I was not as endeared to this institution as I am now. You learn in retrospect and appreciate as you move on. I was indeed shaped by my experience at Smith—it was the first time I had to struggle. It was the very first time I learned how to determine and focus very specifically on the things that I felt were important, to strategize and to learn how to go about getting them and making them happen. While it was painful then, I am truly thankful for that experience now.

As she continued, she made it a point to remember martyrs and also praised her fellow African-Americans for their determination to be treated as equals;

We as Americans memorialize and honor symbols of heroic deeds done on the battlefields of war and violence. So should we honor those cosmic travelers who have given their lives for the struggle for peace and justice. We have thousands of monuments to men at war, at long last we have the opportunity to celebrate the life of a man of peace who was one of our own. This accomplishment is a moment of triumph—but not for Martin Luther King Jr., he wouldn’t have cared one way or other, his was a very self-effacing spirit. But it says something about the potential and possibility that he drew from America; it says something about what we one day can actually achieve. He made us look at ourselves, black and white, rich and poor, and we began to alter. We changed the condition of our society. As black people we threw off the feeling of inferiority that shackled us—we pulled ourselves up and demanded our god-given rights. Many white people were freed from their false sense of superiority, which blinded and distorted their true humanity.

Later life

On December 9, 1990, she canceled a planned appearance in a play in Tucson, Arizona and ignored a boycott going on at the time by civil rights groups and other activists for Arizona voters rejecting the proposal of Martin Luther King, Jr. Day being celebrated there. On January 17, 1991, Yolanda spoke before a crowd of students at Edmonds Community College, around 200 in number. She debunked complacency in having any role in progression of her father's dream. She joined her mother in placing a reef around her father's crypt. King stressed in 1992 that love would help people make their mark on the world. That same year, she also spoke at Indiana University. In October, King gave support for a Cabrini-Green family that wants to escape the violence, and a fundraiser for their cause.

Twenty-five years after her father's assassination, she went to his gravesite. There, she joined hands with her siblings and mother along with other civil rights activists, singing We Shall Overcome. During July 1993, she agreed to speak at the Coral Springs City Centre for airfare and a fee in January 1994. She originally wanted $8,000, but was negotiated down to $6,500. During said speech, she mentioned that the fact that the poverty line in America among children had nearly tripled and urged people to "reach out" and "do what you can". In October, she uttered her belief that her father's dream of integration was not understood fully.

On February 1, 1994 King attempted to speak before a diverse class of students at North Central College. She stated, "It is entirely appropriate that you would choose to focus on multiculturalism as the opening activity of Black History Month. The only reason why Black History Month was created and still exists is because America is still struggling and trying to come to grips, come to terms with the diversity of its people." In July 1994, after seeing some photographs of her father prior to his death, Yolanda lamented that "this [had] brought back a lot of memories. It's often hard for young people to understand the fear and terror so many people felt and how bold they were to get involved in the marches. But walking through the first part of the exhibit I felt that terror."

In the fall of 1995, at the age of 39, she joined Ilyasah Shabazz and Reena Evers in saluting their mothers as they chaired an attempt at registering one million African-American women to vote in the presidential election of 1996. She also honored her father in 1995, by performing in the Chicago Sinfonietta in the play "A Lincoln Portrait", in which she was the narrator. The "commitment" to diverse members in the audience and the play itself, was what represented the opportunities for which King fought. King joined the rest of her family in February 1997, in supporting a retrial for James Earl Ray, the man convicted of her father's murder, having realized that "without our direct involvement, the truth will never come out." In an interview with People magazine in 1999, she recalled when she first learned of her father's death and stated that "to this day, [her] heart skips a beat every time [she] hear one of those special bulletins."

King appeared in the film Selma, Lord Selma, based on the 1965 Selma to Montgomery marches as Miss Bright. Prior to the film's release, King expressed belief in children of the time only knowing "Martin Luther King Jr. was killed, but when it is time to talk about the facts and the history, there is not a lot of knowledge. They look at me when I'm talking as if this is science fiction."

Final years

File:Yolanda King Human Rights Campaign, 2000.png

King speaks at the Human Rights Campaign Detroit Gala Dinner.

King attended and spoke at the Human Rights Campaign Detroit Gala Dinner of 2000. In a twenty-four minute long speech, she brought up the presidential election of that year, and also quoted the words of Bobby Kennedy by recalling his line which he took from George Bernard Shaw, that of "Some men see things as they are and say why? I dream things that never were and say why not?".

During a presentation in May 2000, King was asked if the human race would ever become "color blind". In response, she pushed for "the goal" to be "color acceptance." Following the September 11 attacks, King spoke in North Chicago in 2002 and related that her father's wisdom during the crisis would have been of great aid to her. She mentioned the possibility that the event could have been a calling for Americans to put their loyalty towards "their race, tribe and nation", as her father once said. She, her brother Martin Luther King III and Al Sharpton sang We Shall Overcome in front of "The Sphere", which stood atop the World Trade Center prior to the September 11 attacks.

Yolanda continued to pay admiration towards her father that year by promoting a show in Los Angeles entitled "Achieving the Dream". During the play, she changed costume numerous times and adjusted her voice and body language when changing roles.

King and Elodia Tate co-edited the book Open My Eyes, Open My Soul: Celebrating Our Common Humanity, published by McGraw-Hill in 2003.

In January 2004, King referred to her father as a king, but not as one who "sat on a throne, but one who sat in a dark Birmingham jail."

While in Dallas in March 2004, King related; "It's only in the past half-dozen years or so that I have felt comfortable in my own skin. I don't have to try and prove anything to anyone anymore."

"I struggled with a lot of the legacy for a long time, probably actually into my 30s before I really made peace with it," Yolanda stated in 2005 on "Western Skies", a public radio show based in Colorado. That same year, she and her brother Dexter came to oppose their other brother and sister, Martin Luther King III and Bernice King on the matter of selling the King Center. King and Dexter were in favor of sale, but their other siblings were not.

Mother's death

Her mother Coretta, fell through with illness and was beginning to decline in health. The four children of the civil rights activists noticed "something was happening". She was hospitalized on August 16, 2005, and was set to come home as well. Alongside the physician that took care of her mother, Dr. Maggie Mermin and her sister, Yolanda told the press that her mother was making progress on a daily basis and was expected to make a full recovery. After she died on January 30 of the next year, Yolanda, like her siblings, attended her funeral. When asked about how she was faring following the death of her mother, Yolanda responded: "I connected with her spirit so strongly. I am in direct contact with her spirit, and that has given me so much peace and so much strength." She found her mother's personal papers in her home.

Final months

She preached in January 2007 to an audience in Ebenezer Baptist Church to be an oasis for peace and love, as well as to use her father's holiday as starting ground for their own interpretations of prejudice. She spoke on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day 2007 to attendants at the Ebenezer Baptist Church and stated: "We must keep reaching across the table and, in the tradition of Martin Luther King Jr. and Coretta Scott King, feed each other,". After her hour-long presentation, she joined her sister and her aunt, Christine King Ferris, in signing books.

Death

A week prior to her death, she spoke at St. Mary's Medical Center, on the part of the American Stroke Association. On May 15, 2007, King spoke to her brother Dexter and stated that she was tired, though he thought nothing of it due to her "hectic" schedule. Around an hour later, King collapsed in the Santa Monica, California home of Philip Madison Jones, her brother Dexter King's best friend, and could not be revived. Her death came only a year after her mother's. Her family has speculated that her death was caused by a heart condition. A public memorial for Yolanda King was held on May 24, 2007, at Ebenezer Baptist Church Horizon Sanctuary in Atlanta, Georgia. Many in attendance did not know her, but came out of respect for the King family's history of non-violence and social justice. King was cremated. She was 51. All three of her siblings lit a candle in her memory.

Reaction

Bernice King said it was "very difficult standing here blessed as her one and only sister. Yolanda, from your one and only, I thank you for being a sister and for being a friend." Martin Luther King III uttered that ""Yolanda is still in business. She just moved upstairs." Maya Angelou wrote a tribute to her, which was read during the memorial service. She wrote "Yolanda proved daily that it was possible to smile while wreathed in sadness. In fact, she proved that the smile was more powerful and sweeter because it had to press itself through mournfulness to be seen, force itself through cruelty to show that the light of survival shines for us all." Many former classmates of both Grady High School and Smith College attended to remember her. Raphael Warnock stated; "She dealt with the difficulty of personal pain and public responsibility and yet...she emerged from it all victorious. Thank you for her voice."

Philosophy

Views on father's legacy

To the time of her death, King continued to express denial in her father's dreams and ideals being fulfilled during her lifetime. In 1993, she debunked any thought that her father's "dream" had been anything but a dream, and was quoted as saying "It's easier to build monuments than to make a better world. It seems we've stood still and in many ways gone backward since Martin Luther King Jr. was alive.", during a celebration that marked what would have been her father's sixty-fourth birthday.

Despite this, she was quoted in January of 2003 of saying that she was "a 100 percent, dyed-in-the-wool, card-carrying believer in 'The Dream'. It's a dream about freedom — freedom from oppression, from exploitation, from poverty ... the dream of a nation and a world where each and every child will have the opportunity to simply be the very best that they can be." The statement was made while she was in the presence of 800 people who gathered to honor her father at the Everett Theatre. She made it clear that month that she was not trying to fill her father's footsteps, noting jokingly that "They're too big" and that she would "fall and break [her] neck".

She also advocated for her father's holiday to be used as a day for helping others, and also expressed dissatisfaction on the basis of people relaxing on his day. On January 15, 1997, she spoke at Florida Memorial College and expressed what she believed her father would feel if "he knew that people were taking a day off in his memory to do nothing".

Gay rights

Yolanda King speaking at the 2006 Out & Equal Workplace Summit.

King was an ardent activist for gay rights, as was her mother, Coretta. She was among 187 people arrested during a demonstration by lesbian and gay rights activists.

She stated at the Chicago's Out and Equal Workplace Summit in 2006 "If you are gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender, you do not have the same rights as other Americans, you cannot marry, ...you still face discrimination in the workplace, and in our armed forces. For a nation that prides itself on liberty, justice and equality for all, this is totally unacceptable.

Legacy

Dexter King said of his sister:

"She gave me permission. She allowed me to give myself permission to be me".

Jesse Jackson stated that King “lived with a lot of the trauma of our struggle. The movement was in her DNA.” Joseph Lowery stated; "She was a princess and she walked and carried herself like a princess. She was a reserved and quiet person who loved acting." On May 25, 2008, her brother Martin Luther III and his wife, Andrea, became the parents of a baby girl and named her Yolanda, after his late sister. During a 2009 reunion at her alma mater Smith College, a walk was done in her memory by fellow alumni.

Portrayals in film and on stage

Yolanda has mostly been portrayed in films that revolve around her parents.

• Felecia Hunter, in the 1978 television miniseries King.
• Ronda Louis-Jeune as an adult, in the 2013 television movie Betty and Coretta.

Filmography

• King (1978) (mini)

• Hopscotch (1980)

• Death of a Prophet (1981)

• No Big Deal (1983) (TV)

• Fluke (1995)

• America's Dream (1996) (TV)

• Ghosts of Mississippi (1996)

• Drive by: A Love Story (1997)

• Our Friend, Martin (1999) (V)

• Selma, Lord, Selma (1999) (TV)

• Funny Valentines (1999) (TV)

• The Secret Path (1999)

• Chasing Secrets (1999)

• Odessa (film) (2000)

• JAG

• Still My Little Soldier (2001)

• Liberty's Kids (2002)

References

Works cited

• Smith, Jessie Carney (1996). Notable Black American Women, Book 2. Sourcebooks. ISBN 978-0810391772.
• Rickford, Russell J. (2003). Betty Shabazz: A Remarkable Story of Survival and Faith Before and After Malcolm X. Naperville, Ill.: Sourcebooks. ISBN 978-1-4022-0171-4.
• McCarty, Laura T. (2009). Coretta Scott King: A Biography. Sourcebooks. ISBN 978-0313349812.
• Bruns, Roger (2006). Martin Luther King, Jr.: A Biography. Sourcebooks. ISBN 0-313-33686-5.
• Ramdin, Ron (2004). Martin Luther King, Jr. Sourcebooks. ISBN 1-904341-82-9.

Further reading

• King, Dexter Scott (2003). Growing Up King: A Memoir. Grand Central Publishing. ISBN 0446529427.

External links

• Yolanda King at IMDb
• Yolanda King Speech at HRC Dinner
• Odessa (film)