Growing Up King (4 page)

The one thing Daddy didn’t like was to be disturbed when he was in his study, writing down his thoughts, scheduling, composing
sermons, reading and making notes in the margins of his books. There was a contemplative thought process at work in him. He
compartmentalized it. If he was working, then he worked. If he was playing, then he played. He didn’t mix the two.

“Now, Dexter, when Daddy’s working, don’t disturb him. Daddy will play with you soon.”

Most people might think, because of the way he was projected as such a serious person, that he was always so, but sometimes
he was the opposite of that, or the balance of that; he needed an outlet, a way to break the tension. He sought refuge in
his children, his family. He became us.

It seemed we were always going to an event, a church for a meeting, a picnic—there’d always be a banner or a sign or something
with the letters SCLC on it. I used to think the letters meant “King Family Outing.” Whether it was a Voter Registration Project
or a strategy session, they were all outings to us.

I never knew a man with so many brothers and sisters as my father—and resulting aunts and uncles for me and my brother and
sisters. Not only was there Uncle A.D. and Aunt Naomi, or Aunt Christine and Uncle Isaac, our own blood relatives and his
in-laws, there was also Uncle Andy, Uncle Ralph, Uncle Harry, Uncle Bob, Uncle Junius. Uncle Ralph was Ralph Abernathy. Uncle
Andy was Andrew Young. Uncle Harry was Harry Belafonte. Uncle Junius was Junius Griffen. Uncle Bob was either Robert Green
or Robert Johnson. Everybody was related, even if not by blood. And if anybody got in trouble, my family showed up to support
him or her, because that was our habit.

Some would question, Why are you there, why would you get involved with, say, a Ralph Abernathy, Jr., after his brush with
the law as an elected official? Why would you show up at his trial? Well, we were like family. We don’t leave our people behind.
Ralph III and I grew up together. We lived in each other’s homes. We were roommates in college. We’d go to outings, cookouts,
retreats. Our parents took us to work-related events. Even though we were kids just running around, a lot did rub off on us,
just through osmosis, being in the environment, the SCLC conventions where Aretha Franklin sang. We had no idea of the momentous
nature of Daddy’s work. He and his colleagues were about ending the system of segregation in American life, no small or simple
matter.

When the Hyatt opened, the brand-new Hyatt, with the blue dome, I was riding in the futuristic glass-walled elevator feeling
like I was on a spaceship above Atlanta. Architect John Portman was a pioneer in developing new-age spaceship elevators, and
duplicated them in buildings he designed elsewhere. Child that I was, I felt like this had been put in place just for my father,
to whisk him up on high. I knew he was famous. Going to those ceremonies and conventions and remembering the entertainment
there always had the sense of electricity, music in the air—this always stood out to me. I always remember best the entertainment
and the music.

I had no conception of segregation, of how unprecedented such mixed gatherings were, the meaning of a Nobel Peace Prize, which
my father had received in 1964, the same year the system of formal segregation was abolished by law if not by practice in
Atlanta. Daddy’s point had won. He’d persevered. His cause was just and its righteousness prevailed, at least in Atlanta.
I was almost four years old and just knew that all of a sudden we were at the Dinkler Plaza Hotel one winter’s night. The
way I remember it, there were thousands of people there—fifteen hundred, as it turns out: black, white, in between, all to
honor my father. The new mayor, Ivan Allen; Dr. Mays; other dignitaries, businesspeople, but no entertainment. No Aretha Franklin.
Not my kind of room.

We were introduced to the crowd as the children of the winner of the 1964 Nobel Peace Prize. Yoki got up and waved, though
I didn’t understand why; she hadn’t put on a play. Marty got up and bowed from the waist. The way Mother remembers it, when
my name was called, when it was my turn to face the crowd, I slid under the chair instead of standing up on it. The crowd
laughed. Slid under the chair? Is that what I did? No wonder everyone laughed.

Police were always around. I admired them. I admired their uniforms, their sidearms, their garrison caps and badges and official
gold braid. I would stare. I couldn’t tell if they stared back, because they wore dark glasses. Their expressions never changed.
Besides admiring police from afar, I admired entertainers up close, whether it was Harry Belafonte or Bill Cosby, or any number
of others who contributed to what the grown-ups referred to as “the Cause,” or “the Movement.” At times our parents would
be called into active duty. Whether the campaign was in Selma, Birmingham, Montgomery, Albany (Georgia), Chicago, Memphis,
didn’t matter, because we were told they were going to fight for their country to be greater, for people to be treated fairly
and equally under the law. This was for all of our futures, we were told. We understood our parents were doing good work.
Sometimes we’d be teased, which affected Yoki more because she was older and more aware and was so connected to my father.
When teased about our father going to jail, Yoki would tilt her head upward and say, “Yes, he did, but to help poor people.”

There are photographs of us sitting at the table, playing ball in the yard, at the piano as Mother plays and sings. Daddy
had invited a man to our house—Camera Man. He took pictures of us. I was fascinated by his equipment, his cameras, lights,
flashbulbs popping. I thought, “I can do that.” Camera Man took a photo of me sitting on Daddy’s lap, Daddy calmly looking
at the camera. I’m looking off to one side, mouth sprung, seemingly in awe of something, comforted and protected in Daddy’s
lap. Secure. I won’t fall even if I fail. He’ll lift me up. I know this. I can look over the abyss of whatever it is I’m in
awe of in the photo—maybe it was only Yoki making a face at me—I know my father will not let me go. I can take the risk because
he’s there. I trusted him like I have trusted no man before or since. I had the security to be insecure. And then…

The photographs remain. He knew they would.

Camera Man had a name. Flip Schulke, a photographer for
Life
magazine, as Gordon Parks had been. Though my father was protective of us at home, didn’t let reporters or photographers
in, Schulke came by many times to document. I gave him a nickname. My father gave us names of affection: “Yoki-poky,” “Dexterwexter,”
“Marty-bopy,” “Bunny-bopy.” Bunny was Bernice, Yoki was Yolanda, Marty was Martin III, but Dexter was just Dexter. I felt
special; I was named after a church, an old, historic church too, which had been pastored by a man named Vernon Johns before
our father arrived. I was glad to be named Dexter, after the church. It set me apart. Everybody else was named for a person.

Yolanda Denise. My mother had liked that name. Martin was named for my father and my grandfather. Bernice Albertine—Bernice
for my mother’s mother, Albertine for my father’s mother, Alberta. Martin and Yolanda were born in Montgomery. People came
up to me all the time and said, “Yes, Dexter, I remember when you were a baby in Montgomery; you were named after the church
there.” I would never correct them and say, “Yes, I was named for the church, but I was born here in Atlanta. I’m a homeboy.”
I would let them get it out and then say, “Well, I think you’re talking about my brother.” Martin III and I were always kind
of seen as a unit, interchangeable. Even today. People come up and swear it was me who came and spoke at their school or church,
when it was my brother. People say things like, “You should’ve been named Martin—you look just like your father.” I learned
not to bristle when I heard this. I learned to say, “My brother and I agree that the Lord often works in mysterious ways.”

We were all close as children. Yoki was five years my senior, seven years Bernice’s. I don’t remember her being as much a
part of our circle as Bernice, Martin, me—especially Afterward…

Martin and I would tussle. He thought he was my father. Mom generally took us to restaurants, shopping, church, on outings.
We drew attention, but that didn’t stop our parents from giving us a semblance of normalcy. It was only a semblance, though.
We couldn’t do things together as frequently as normal families, because both parents weren’t as available. At times we’d
go with friends of the family; we might go with the Abernathy kids, Ralph III, Juandalyn, and Donzaleigh; or with Uncle A.D’s
and Aunt Naomi’s children, Alveda, Al, Derek, Darlene, and Vernon; or with my father’s sister, Christine King Farris, and
her children, Angela and Isaac. Martin III was three years older than me. Isaac and I were a year apart. Isaac lived in Collier
Heights, where professionals, particularly teachers and preachers, lived. My grandparents lived in a spacious house with a
yard so big Mr. Horton had to use a Snapper riding mower to cut the grass. Aunt Christine, Uncle Isaac, Angela, and Isaac
lived near our grandparents in Collier Heights. Granddaddy still wanted my father to move. Daddy said we were okay in Vine
City.

My cousin Isaac and me, our relationship started out rocky. Fought like cats and dogs. Out of it came an ironclad friendship.
Wasn’t love at first sight, though. Maybe the problem was me attempting to be Isaac’s parent, according to Isaac—trying to
be to Isaac what Martin tried to be to me. Most in our family are head-strong. Wonder where we get it from. I think it mostly
comes from my grandfather, Martin Luther King, Sr., who cast a long shadow. He was a strong-willed, bullheaded man, and he
passed it down; the only one who was able to escape it and establish his own identity was his youngest son and namesake, Martin
Luther King, Jr.

I
saac and I were in the balcony of Ebenezer Baptist Church, listening to our grandfather deliver the Sunday Word.

Being accustomed to the surroundings, Isaac and I were playing around up in the balcony. I could listen to the gospel choir
roll out rollicking Baptist hymns all day. We weren’t the only ones Grand-daddy had in the palm of his hand. He was a strong
Baptist preacher.

Going to church was a chore for us at the time. Granddaddy, affectionately known as Daddy King, was already eyeballing his
young grandsons for possible pulpit heirs, and was finding no takers. Who could live up to it? He was a big man, outsized
in frame, voice, gaze, everything. We weren’t rebellious—too much fear of him for that—but we sensed we were being studied
for suitability.

I had a hard time focusing on church activities, being still and concentrating; consequently Isaac and I were most of the
time running around at church, in church, around church, outside church— church being of course my grandfather’s tidy, eight-hundred-seat
red-brick Ebenezer, at the corner of Jackson Street and Auburn Avenue, where my father was co-pastor.

We were not only sons of a preacher man: we were the grandsons of a preacher man, and the great-grandsons of a preacher man.
My grandmother Big Mama’s late father, A. D. Williams, only vaguely intimidated us via sepia-toned photographs. Isaac and
I were terrors anyway, and though Martin wasn’t my running buddy anymore, he too found his ways to escape the collared noose,
though Martin was always too shrewd to be caught doing the things Isaac and I got caught doing routinely. People probably
thought we had fallen a bit far from the tree. We had fun, though.

My father was not always in the pulpit on Sundays; the Cause had taken over his life. Granddaddy took more of a disciplinarian
role, and my mother too, in the absence of my father.

So on that day when we were in the balcony Isaac said something to make me giggle. One giggle. It was inappropriate, but as
a kid you don’t think like that; we were kind of talking through the service and my grandfather didn’t play that. Did we think
we had already obtained salvation? If we did, he had an update for us. He called us down after his sermon. My grandfather
called us down on the wine-colored carpet. He asked—that’s funny, “asked,” right, he “asked” me and Isaac to come down— “Come
down here!” That was a long walk. Church members nodding solemnly. Peers looking on, dropping heads to hide grins. Marty surreptitiously
drawing a finger across his throat.

“Now, my grandboys will tell the congregation what the message was about.”

Maybe it was genetically encoded. I didn’t recall the sermon then, and don’t now, but for whatever reason, I was able to wing
it; people were “Amen”-ing, and our young peers were disappointed that we were not in for more public humiliation. I shocked
my own self.

“Well…” I began (several church members echoed me: “Waal, waal”), “… you talked about the importance of the Lord, not just
on Sunday, but every day. You said there were too many Simons and not enough Peters, too many Sunday Christians and not enough
everyday Christians.”