Family feud, new book threaten to distract from Martin Luther King's legacy

ERRIN HAINES
Sunday, January 15, 2006
ATLANTA (AP) - On the eve of what would have been Martin Luther King Jr.'s 77th birthday, his legacy is under attack and its greatest defender is unable to speak.


He Had A Dream. Are we any closer? King's widow, Coretta Scott King, is recovering from a stroke that partially paralyzed her, and on Saturday made only her first public appearance since last year's King holiday observance, smiling from a wheelchair at the Salute to Greatness Dinner.
The couple's four children are divided over whether to sell the family-run centre that promotes King's teachings.

And the spotlight is again hitting King's more human side in a new book that alleges extramarital affairs and a nasty split with a civil rights colleague, Rev. Jesse Jackson - a story that threatened to overshadow King's humanitarian contributions on the 20th anniversary of the King National Holiday. Despite all the distractions, those who stood by King's side as soldiers in the civil rights movement say the memory of the self-named Drum Major for Justice is untouchable.

"Dr. King's legacy is as sound as a rock," said Tyrone Brooks, a Georgia state representative from Atlanta who worked alongside King in the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, the SCLC, which King co-founded in 1957.

Rumours of womanizing by King and feuds with Jackson and others have long been popular topics in media and books like And the Walls Came Tumbling Down, the memoir written decades ago by King's former right-hand man, Rev. Ralph David Abernathy. Historian Taylor Branch's book At Canaan's Edge, released last week, is the latest. In the book, the third in Branch's series detailing King's life and the civil rights movement, the author writes of a longstanding affair King allegedly revealed to Coretta Scott King the year before his 1968 assassination. For complete article click here