Growing Up King (21 page)

I
t was 1985, the year after my grandfather died, that we prepared to celebrate the first national King holiday in January 1986,
which, after much effort and acrimony, was signed into law by then-president Ronald Reagan on November 3, 1983.

I wanted to give my own special gift to my father and his legacy. I felt that if it involved music, my passion, I could hopefully
take his message to younger generations. I decided to produce a record. I called Phil in New York.

He had the musician contacts, he was a talented composer, he could help me pull it together. Phil agreed, and immediately
started getting together a group of artists—rappers, initially, which at the time was very avant-garde and controversial.
But we believed that rap and hip-hop would become very influential in our culture. We felt it was the crest of a new wave
and that if we could do something cutting-edge like this with the song, kids would listen and maybe even hear the ideas of
my father. The first person we approached was Kurtis Blow. Kurtis got excited, wanted to involve other people.

These were the beginning days of “rap,” initial stages of the whole cloth of hip-hop as a new culture. We went to a young
music entrepreneur named Russell Simmons and got some of his artists involved, including his brother’s group, Run-DMC. It
just snowballed from there. Initially, it was to be a rap song, but once the New York artistic community found out about it,
they wanted to get involved. So it evolved to a rap/vocal/R&B song—really a chorus, with rap. Every day a new verse was written
to accommodate another artist who had agreed to help, whether it was Stephanie Mills, Whitney Houston, Tina Marie, or New
Edition.

We had to turn down LL Cool J, which I regret in retrospect. We didn’t have enough room. He was just starting out. Today I
can’t believe some of the people we had to turn away. We had fifteen or sixteen acts, doing it on a shoestring. Studio time
was donated.

We got various groups to help us until a record company picked it up. We jumped out there on faith. At the time I was the
director of the office of special events and entertainment at the King Center. It seemed like the best place for me to continue
to nurture my love of music and the arts while still attending to the serious mission of Mother’s life after my father’s death.
The King Center is the embodiment of the work and sacrifices of my family, and my soul needs to support it. But my heart always
dreamed of a life in music.

I was by then viewed as the black sheep of the family; this project didn’t reverse that perception. I don’t mean I was viewed
in a bad way—I wasn’t a rebel, it was just that I was more out there than some thought I should be. I was visible socially—informally
versus formally. I didn’t follow the path of being groomed, accredited, blessed. I’d moved toward the King Center, toward
the legacy, for the first time with this job. I didn’t want to let down my family, but I still wanted to be me.

This record project helped to raise money for the King Center and to create awareness around the new King holiday. It was
exciting, going into the studio, recording these artists. Until this day, when I see Michael Bivins, or any of the former
members of New Edition, they remember. Ricky Martin was in Menudo then. It was like a “We Are the World” production. We had
many of the hottest young artists, and the music video was financed entirely by Prince. Music industry veteran Clarence Avant
served as our senior adviser and contributed financially. Polygram eventually picked up the record for distribution. However,
we soon realized that we had set up the deal in a way that did not provide enough financial incentive for the record company
to aggressively promote it. In hindsight, we would’ve been wiser to have structured it so that everybody got a little bit
of something, profit-wise; that would have been more of an incentive for them to push it through the channels, and onto many
more radio station airplay lists.

A lot of radio stations would not even play it once we had it pressed. I’d get on the phone with some of the black radio program
directors and they’d yawn. Phil and I produced, recorded, marketed, and promoted this record. We’d done the legwork. But in
the end, whenever I’d call these radio stations, they’d claim that because it had rap in it, they couldn’t play it.

Remember, this was 1985, going into 1986. Rap was still mostly underground. Ours was one of the first projects to incorporate
rap into mainstream values or icons like Daddy. It would be years after before rap and hip-hop exploded. Now, seventeen years
later, you can’t close a record deal, make a commercial, or record a movie soundtrack unless you have rap and hip-hop in there
somewhere. But at that time, we met with a lot of resistance.

In subsequent years, around the King holiday, many radio stations would play our song, even through the ’90s.

The title of the single was “King Holiday, Sing, Celebrate.”

The lyrics went something like, “Once a year, we celebrate Washington and Lincoln on their birth dates, now a third name is
added to the list, a man of peace, a drum major for justice…”

The chorus: “Sing, celebrate, sing, sing, celebrate for a King, celebrate.” The first verse started out with New Edition.
“Who do we thank for teaching us that we have the strength to love…” Tina Marie came in: “We thank the prince of nonviolence…”
Then Stephanie Mills, Whitney Houston—a great blend.

We conceived this thanks to many, particularly Mother and the commitment to making the King holiday a reality by the consummate
musician, Stevie Wonder. Stevie composed a song, “Happy Birthday to You,” and put it on his
Hotter Than July
album in 1981. Now that song is sung nearly as often as the traditional “Happy Birthday” melody. Stevie was front and center
of a march in Washington to help ensure there’d be a King holiday to celebrate.

We were invited to the White House again in 1983, for the signing of the King holiday legislation by President Reagan. Martin
and I were quiet as we entered the White House. George and Barbara Bush, the vice president and his wife, reached out warmly,
like they were accustomed to seeing black folk as people beyond whatever they had to do publicly to retain political currency.
Like Humphrey, Bush was kind. I watched the faces of my mother and siblings brighten when Vice President Bush took personal
time with them. President Reagan used thirty pens so those present could get to keep one and say that that was the pen he
used to sign the legislation.

Vice President Bush took my brother and me to his desk and showed us where all the vice presidents of the United States, dating
back many years, had carved their initials in the drawer. Then Mr. Reagan was ready for us to come into the Oval Office; from
there, after formal hellos and a few stories, we walked out to the Rose Garden for the signing. George Bush reached out to
me, and Barbara Bush had a downright grandmotherly warmth. With both of them, you felt like you were talking to real people.
I appreciated this, especially since we were already beginning to feel public slings and arrows, backlash, I suppose from
my father being so sanctified in the public memory and from the battle to make his birthday the first American national holiday
to honor an African American. We were already taking hits for being just the family of Martin Luther King, Jr., and not Martin
Luther King, Jr., himself.

It was an honor, no doubt, yet we’d had to demand it.

President Reagan was nice, but seemed a little aloof. But George Bush? “Come on in here! What’s going on? Let me tell you
about this. Let me show you that.” That was one time I felt we were at an important moment in history, where somebody went
above and beyond the call of duty. The Bushes could’ve just come for the ceremony. They also seemed to be interested in the
sacrament. It didn’t come across as contrived. I sensed that these were caring, decent people. I have always appreciated their
attention, especially after Granddaddy’s death, when we got condolences from the Bushes, and Vice President Bush attended
the funeral.

It was the fall of ’88 when my mother called us together as a family to go on retreat. By now she’d been head of the King
Center for twenty years, and through her hard work, and the help of Maynard Jackson and Andy Young when they were mayors of
Atlanta, and Jimmy Carter when he was governor of Georgia and president of the United States, and captains of industry like
Henry Ford, the DuPonts, and others, the Center was built and completed on Auburn Avenue, adjacent to Ebenezer Baptist Church.
If ever Atlanta had a historic district, this was it.

At the countryside retreat, Mother raised the issue of succession. The King Center board of directors had been raising the
issue with her; it was important for any organization to have a line of succession. At first I was barely listening, then
for some reason my ears started burning. It was the way Mother was looking at me. Expectantly. Me? Not me. Not with my rep,
my history.

We were in a cabin in the northeast Georgia mountains, the tailpipe of the Great Smokies, sitting in a circle, and Mother
first put it out there—in essence, Who’s interested in taking this on? By then Yolanda was fully into acting, directing, producing,
into the life of theater, drama, film, the arts. She shook her head emphatically. “No way,” her look said. “Not here.” In
fact, her mouth said it too. Yolanda has never ever been particularly shy.

Martin had entered politics.

By then Bernice was pursuing her calling to the ministry.

We gazed around the circle and everybody wore the same expression: “Not me, it’s not me, don’t look at me,” rolling our eyes
at our mother, but in a good-natured way. Then everybody kind of looked at me. Bernice and Yolanda came out and said it. I
don’t know if they had worked it out beforehand. First Bernice: “Dexter, you know we need you to do this…”

“It has to be you, Dexter.”

I seemed to be the one who took the most interest in the Center, they said. Plus, I was the “why” guy. We all had gotten a
little bit of something from our father. Yolanda got his sense for the dramatic, for the theatrical, and his great feel for
people. Martin got his name and his ability to canvass and to be diplomatic and to advocate, and also his moderacy; Bernice
got his deeply rooted spirituality, his religiosity, his philosophical bent, if I can put it that way, and, I must add, his
oratorical ability.

What did I get? Outside of a resemblance to both parents? Well, in the first place, the uncanny resemblance is something,
isn’t it? But also, I think I got Dad’s disposition, and patience. He was the same way. I may feel upset about something,
but I know it’s not going to help matters to go do something that makes it worse. Even though to a lot of people, that’s gratification.

It wasn’t a question of whether or not I wanted this responsibility anymore. It was a question of how best to accept it. I
knew that, at least for now, this move was my destiny. How can one argue with that? I had always had a sense of process from
a grassroots, jailhouse lawyer perspective, watching my mom in board meetings, reading the minutes, being on the board. I
probably got the best kind of training by practical experience. But I also knew that it meant continuing to put my dreams
of a life in arts and entertainment on hold—indefinitely. I had been seriously considering moving to Los Angeles around the
same time; really trying to make a go of it. Through my work on the King Holiday record and my position at the Center, I had
developed experience and relationships in music and entertainment. But duty called, and for the love of my family I responded.
I was reminded of the way my mother must have felt when she chose to postpone her musical career after graduating from the
New England Conservatory of Music to return to the south with my father to continue to challenge the prevailing social conditions.

It was the spring of 1989, and I’d just turned twenty-eight. I was not scheduled to come in and officially take charge until
April. The King Center board wanted it to coincide with the King assassination “anniversary,” April 4. I had an installation
service, five hours of formality in the old sanctuary of Ebenezer Baptist Church, where so many of my memories were. It was
a big celebration, with people from all over. Berry Gordy came and donated Motown master tapes of some of our father’s speeches.
There was a real anointed feeling. It humbled me. It was a period where there was much hope and good intentions. But you know
what they say about the latter. People important to me came: Phil Jones, friends from Los Angeles, some of my acting friends
like Sheryl Lee Ralph. Tavis Smiley came—he at that time was working with Tom Bradley, part of a young political group. Isaac
was there. My friend Jennifer Holliday sang. Adam Clayton Powell IV came, as well as other sons and daughters of the Movement.

Barbara Williams Skinner was serving as the chief operating officer and executive vice president of the King Center. Barbara
was very active and prominent in black leadership circles, particularly in the D.C. area. She had worked with the Congressional
Black Caucus, been in different circles, and had a longtime relationship with my mom. Some members of the board felt that
Barbara needed to be packaged with me to make this, and me, credible. Because of the way it was presented, I think, to other
people, it raised more questions than it answered. When the torch was passed in the ceremonial part of my installation, Barbara
appeared on the platform to receive the torch with me. That in and of itself sent a message.