King Children Divided Over Fate of Center (may sell to Natl Park Service)

[DeepModem Mom]

LAT: King Children Divided Over Fate of Center
As the civil rights leader's widow struggles to recover from a stroke, their offspring fight over selling the King Center, which she founded.

By Jenny Jarvie, Times Staff Writer


ATLANTA — Every year since the assassination of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., his widow, Coretta Scott King, has marked his birthday at the church where he delivered his first and last sermon.

But this year, no one at Ebenezer Baptist Church is sure Coretta King — or any of her four children — will attend Monday.

As Coretta King, 78, has spent the last few months recuperating from a major stroke that left her unable to speak, her children have been embroiled in a bitter squabble over the fate of the struggling King Center, which their mother founded shortly after her husband's death.

Just steps away from the church where King preached his gospel of nonviolence, his children have hired locksmiths to keep each other out of the center, and have shared their grievances with local media.

While Dexter Scott King and Yolanda Denise King are pushing efforts to sell the Atlanta landmark — which needs an estimated $11.6 million in repairs — to the National Park Service, their siblings, Martin Luther King III and Bernice Albertine King, are opposing the sale....


http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-king14jan14,0,5566266.story?coll=la-home-headlines&track=morenews

[hlthe2b]

1. well that is certainly a sad story...

I've heard rumblings about this before, but hadn't realized how serious it had become. I should think with Coretta's fragile state that some trusted family friend could try to get an independent mediator to help them through this? :shrug:

[The Icon Painter]

2. Here in Atlanta

We have had front row seats to this tragedy of greed, incompetence and selfishness. The genius of the father seems not to have passed to his progeny. They have squandered their father's legacy as surely as any other wastrel generation. The shame and the pity is that no one thought to say "no" to them at any time when this could have remained private. One can only feel grief for Coretta Scott King as she mutely observes the wretched behaviour of her children.

The Atlanta Journal/Constitution has covered this developing story for a long time. There are no winners here. ;(

[DeepModem Mom]

3. Thanks for your insight, as an Atlantan, Madame. nt