The family of Martin Luther King on his legacy and the 2024 election
ITV News sat down with the family of Martin Luther King at the National Center for Civil and Human Rights in Atlanta
He was just ten years old when he learnt of the news his father had been shot.
On April 4 1968, the veteran news anchor Walter Cronkite announced the assassination of Martin Luther King Junior to a shocked nation and a numb King family.
Yet 56 years on, the emotional toll of that moment is still powerful.
Martin Luther King III fights back tears as he tells me about being told by his mother that his civil rights activist father "had gone to live with God".
The legacy of Martin Luther King Jr’s soaring rhetoric has a revered place in the American story. His eldest son tells me the dream of which his father spoke, still appears distant in today’s decidedly disunited States of America.
However, he says Kamala Harris, who will be celebrated as the party's formal nominee at this week's Democratic National Convention, evokes hope.
"The engagement and the energy that the Vice President brings is certainly different, and it does evoke hope in the end," said Martin Luther King III.
"And really evokes hope from all levels, seniors to those who are in my age range, to those who are younger and probably even children and certainly young ladies.”
He is looking straight at his 16-year-old daughter Yolanda when he makes that point.
She too is impressed with Harris saying she feels "encouraged and powered up".
Yolanda speaks with a fluidity and eloquence which belies her youth. She is already an accomplished campaigner, having authored a children’s book against gun violence.
Yolanda King is the author of her book titled 'We Dream a World: Carrying the Light From My Grandparents Martin Luther King, Jr. and Coretta Scott King'
Mr King’s wife Arndrea Waters King also speaks passionately about Harris whom she describes as "extraordinarily qualified" and who has already set out a difference of messaging from the Biden campaign, seeking to construct a forward-looking vision.
On Donald Trump, the couple are diplomatic, keen to avoid being drawn into ad hominem attacks.
When I ask if Mr King thinks Donald Trump is racist, he replies that he thinks the former president has “advocated positions which are racist”, and points out Donald Trump’s father was a member of the Klu Klux Klan and wonders what motivated Trump to question the ethnicity of Kamala Harris.
I ask what he made of Donald Trump recently suggesting he’d attracted a bigger crowd on the Mall in Washington DC than Martin Luther King Junior had in 1963.
“I don’t understand, quite frankly, the issue in comparing crowd sizes. What relevance is that?” he asks.
“How does that revert to a policy that's going to change the lives of people, Not how much of a crowd you draw, but how much of your policy is going to lift up people? That’s where the focus should be.”
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His wife Arndrea is more forthright describing the boasting of crowd numbers as "ludicrous", before reminding me the crowd which stormed the Capitol on January 6 was full of violent individuals brandishing swastikas and nooses.
Both appear worried about the direction the country is heading in.
Mr King tells me: “We will not survive if we turn on each other. Dad used to say we must learn nonviolence or we may face nonexistence.
"And we are at a critical point now where our nation could be that divided, that it starts destroying itself.”
I ask whether he is talking about civil war and he clarifies: “I'm talking about the prospect of that being promoted.”
Many feel one realm where division is being amplified is on X and both express their disappointment at Elon Musk, especially in light of his comments after the stabbings in Southport.
Mr King points out Musk “is a person who was born and raised in South Africa… during apartheid…that perhaps maybe that informs who this person really is.”
He offers a message to Musk: “Does this bring us together as a nation and a world? Or what you've chosen to do, does it create more division and hatred and animosity?
"Certainly from my perspective, that's what it feels like he's doing. It does not feel that he's creating an independent platform for people to come together.”
Arndrea adds: “I think that he has been flaming the fanning the flames of division for quite a while. And in some ways, it seems, you know, unchecked. With a huge platform, comes huge responsibility.
"And you can't hide behind freedom of speech by stoking flames of division and more racism and bigotry. And so that is not the way to get us to the beloved community. That is not the way for us all to realize the dream.”
The dream she references is of course Martin Luther King Junior’s ‘I Have a Dream’ speech so powerfully elucidated in 1963.
His dream of unity and equality still seems distant according to Yolanda. “It's obviously inspiring and it moves people. I mean, it's moved the world. It's moved and changed the lives and perceptions of so many.
"But then I hear the speeches now and I'm like, we're still, we're still kind of talking about the same content.” Her point is that racism and discrimination are still very real issues for black Americans in 2024.
Later this year the family are preparing to launch a campaign called ‘Realise the Dream’ to encourage young people across America to complete 100 million hours of service by what would have been Martin Luther King Junior’s 100th birthday in 2029.
Arndrea puts the challenge simply: “We are all heirs to the King legacy.”
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