Dexter Scott King, RIP.
Washington, Jan 22 (EFE).-
Dexter Scott King, son of civil rights icon Martin Luther King Jr., died Monday at the age of 62 due to prostate cancer, the King Center said.
“He transitioned peacefully in his sleep at home with me in Malibu,” his wife Leah Weber King said in the statement.
“He gave it everything and battled this terrible disease until the end. As with all the challenges in his life, he faced this hurdle with bravery and might.”
The third of four children to King Jr. and Coretta Scott King, King was born in 1961 in Atlanta and was just seven years old when his reverend and activist father was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee in 1968.
His parents named him after the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Alabama, where King Jr. was a pastor, before moving to Atlanta.
King was the family member charged with legally protecting his father’s intellectual legacy, was president of the King estate and the chairman of the King Center, of which his younger sister, Bernice, is CEO.
He had an interest in the performing arts and in 2002 he played his father in the film “The Rosa Parks Story.”
A memorial service will be announced at a later time. EFE