By Cheryl Smith
Texas Metro News
News of the death of Dexter Scott King, the youngest son of Coretta and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., spread rapidly today with many sharing memories and expressions of love for the family.
The Morehouse College graduate, who followed in the footsteps of his father and older brother, Martin Luther King, III, died of prostate cancer. He was 62.
Peter Johnson worked with Dr. King at the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) and became very close to the family.
In an emotional interview, Johnson talked about how Dexter and his siblings would be around those in the civil rights movement and how he watched them grow up.
He took several breaks as his voice wavered, and then he appeared to brighten up as he described a red, shiny Mustang that as a young man he drove. “I would let them sit in my lap and I would give them all a ride.”
Johnson, the visiting lecturer at the University of North Texas at Dallas, was teaching the “History of the Civil Rights Movement: 1963-Current” when he received word of Dexter’s passing.
“I was not ready for this,” he said, adding that he knew of the prostate cancer diagnosis but was not expecting this news.
“I knew Dexter was not doing good. I need to call Andrew (referring to Ambassador Andrew Young, who was a close confidant of Dr. King and served as executive director of the SCLC in the 1960s).”
He continued to repeat the need to call the Ambassador, who also previously served as mayor of Atlanta and was with Dr. King on the balcony of The Lorraine Motel, where King was assassinated, in Memphis TN on that fateful day, April 4, 1968.
Rev. Don Robinson, of Dallas, was also a family friend. Dexter’s eldest sister, Yolanda, who died in 2007 of complications related to a chronic heart condition was the Godmother to Robinson’s son, Nigel.
Robinson remembers meeting a young Dexter in 1985.
“I met him when I attended services at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta to hear Bernice King preach her first sermon,” he recalled, adding that Dexter was “very lowkey, with a very astute business mind. He was very personable, but not the gifted speaker like his siblings. He preferred to be behind the scenes.”
While touring with his book, “Growing Up King: An Intimate Memoir,” Dexter visited Dallas and signed books at Black Images Book Bazaar, which was considered one of the premiere Black-owned bookstores in the country.
Co-owner Emma Rodgers remembered Dexter as “cool, calm and collected.”
“I liked his demeanor,” she said. “He was a combination of his mother and dad. Dexter was very approachable. He engaged with the audience in a warm manner.”
Rodgers remembered that Dexter traveled with his cousin and she witnessed their interactions, saying she saw a special bond between the two that seemed to have a profound effect on him. “Dexter seemed to be comforted, having someone he trusted near.”
Black Images also hosted Rev. Bernice King at the African American Museum and Yolanda King at an event in South Dallas.
Dexter was a civil rights and animal rights activist, who portrayed his father in the television movie, “The Rosa Parks Story.”
Introduced to vegetarianism in the late 1980s, by another of his father’s comrades; comedian, health enthusiast, and civil/human rights activist Dick Gregory, Dexter became a vegan and was very health conscious.
His death sends a message, said Dallas County Commissioner John Wiley Price, who knew Dexter and his siblings and became even closer to Martin, III; who served as a Fulton (GA) County Commissioner from 1987 to 1993.
Stressing the importance of self-care, Price said, as he expressed support to the family, “Black men need to check themselves. Prostate cancer is preventable and it doesn’t care who the person is.
“With Black men, unfortunately, it is detected in the latter stages,” he continued. “Our health has to become a priority.”
Dexter and wife Leah Weber King, celebrated a decade of marriage in 2023.
He was born on January 30, 1961 and his mother died on his 45th birthday, January 30, 2006.
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