In Search Of Excellence - Martin Luther King III: The Dream Lives On – Honoring MLK Jr.’s Legacy | E93

Episode Date: December 26, 2023

Welcome to In Search of Excellence! My guest today is Martin Luther King III, a human rights activist, advocate, and philanthropist. He is the oldest son and the oldest living child of the civil rights icons, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Coretta Scott King. For the past five decades, Martin has continued his parents’ legacy by dedicating his life to equality, social justice, and nonviolent activism, and is honored that activism through his dedication to human rights, voting access, gun violence prevention, race relations, and other important social causes. He advocates for underserved communities and he has led initiatives, including the King Center for Nonviolent Social Change, and he has also been awarded the Rosa L. Parks Award and the Lantern of Peace Award. Time stamps:01:56 Martin Luther King as a father- MLK III was 10 years old when MLK Jr. was killed- When he wasn’t on the road, he spent time with his children- People always wanted to speak to him05:55 Moving to Atlanta and bullying- The first African American kids to integrate the Atlanta school- A kid with issues started bullying them- The change in their relationship- Mental health issues and bullying10:37 An advice to parents whose kids are bullied- Work to build a strong foundation within your children- Figure out how to fortify your child- Martin Luther King’s speech about resilience 13:00 When did he find out how important was his dad?- Fully aware when he was assassinated- Many famous people used to come to their house- The president Kennedy was at his funeral- Listened to his dad’s speeches later in life18:46 Traveling with his dad- His dad traveled a lot- 80% of the time he traveled alone- He would always seek his wife’s advice and counsel- They met at Boston University- Moving to Montgomery and becoming the leader in the community23:16 The constant threat on Martin Luther King’s life- The incident with a burning cross- Martin Luther King was in constant danger- A bomb was thrown at their home in Montgomery- The New York attack and the cross on the skin30:30 Martin Luther’s King Jr. assassination- The day Martin Luther King Jr. was killed- Comforting conversations with his mother- His mom led the march on Memphis before the funeral35:00 The influence of I Had a Dream speech- The Civil Rights March in Washington- A speech that could be felt by everyone- The last message delivered at the National Cathedral- How to disagree without being disagreeable- It’s important to have common ground and build relationships41:38 The winning of the Nobel prize- A validation that he was on the right road- Wanted to create a better world for all of God's children- Always better to resolve conflict than to pick up arms- His message is equally needed today45:36 Forgiveness and hatred- Dad and mom taught them to forgive- How to handle losing a loved one?- His grandmother and uncle were killed in the next 5 years- The traumatic meaning of special bulletins- His grandfather meets his wife’s murderer- Harboring hatred or finding a way to release and love54:00 The burden of his name- Subconsciously felt the challenges- His mother liberated him by sayiSponsors:Sandee | Bliss: BeachesWant to Connect? Reach out to us online!Website | Instagram | LinkedIn

We certainly listen with our ears, but we hear with our heart. So whenever I hear, I probably only heard the I Have a Dream speech maybe a hundred times. I've listened thousands. I could recite some of it backward and forward, but I'm not always hearing it. Whenever I hear it, those hundred or so times I've heard it, I've shed tears, even to this moment. I mean, I could listen to it right now, but I wouldn't necessarily be hearing it. But whenever I stop and hear it, it reduces me to tears. Welcome to In Search of Excellence, where we meet entrepreneurs, CEOs, entertainers, athletes, motivational speakers, and trailblazers of excellence with incredible stories from all

walks of life. My name is Randall Kaplan. I am a serial entrepreneur, venture capitalist, and a host of In Search of Excellence, which I started to motivate and inspire us to achieve excellence in all areas of our lives. My guest today is Martin Luther King III. Martin is a human rights activist, advocate, and philanthropist, and is the oldest son and oldest living child of civil rights icons, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Coretta Scott King. For the past five decades, Martin has continued his parents' legacy by dedicating his life to equality, social justice, and nonviolent activism, and has honored that activism through his dedication on human rights,

voting access, gun violence prevention, and race relations, among other important social causes. He is a champion for the underserved communities and has led initiatives, including the King Center for Nonviolent Social Change, and he has also been awarded the Rosa L. Parks Award and the Lantern of Peace Award. Martin, it's an incredible pleasure to have you on my show. Welcome to In Search of Excellence. Thank you. I appreciate having the opportunity to share. I always start my show with our family because from the moment we're born, our family helps shape our personalities, our values, and our future.

You were born in Montgomery, Alabama, and you moved to Atlanta when you were young. I think it's safe to say that nearly every person in the world knows who your dad was and knows that he was one of the greatest, most influential, and most famous civil rights activists ever to live. He was also a hero to billions of people around the world, including me. But I don't think many people know what kind of dad your father was. Can you tell us what he was like as a dad? And as part of this, can you tell us about why you went from playing football and baseball outside and going to the YMCA on Butler Street and going swimming there to having to play inside and play ping pong and pool? Certainly. I'm honored to share that information. I think the first part of the question was, who was he as a father?

And quite frankly, I was 10 years old when Dad was killed, so I only knew him as Dad. And he was like our playmate. He would come home from being on the road. He traveled, it felt like daily, but certainly every week, several days a week, he would be traveling somewhere in our nation. But when he came home, he wanted to devote his energies toward satisfying his four children. So there were times when we would toss the football or baseball and sometimes playing basketball in the backyard, but mostly we played in the front. At a certain point, his notoriety became so significant that if he was out with us as his children, people would just stop and come and want to talk to him, ask questions, get his attention. And he didn't want that to happen.

He wanted to always be available to people. But more importantly, he wanted to devote his time, since he knew he was gone, quite frequently. He had a large, little quantity of time, but he wanted the quality to be remarkable for his children. So we ended up going inside and having to play inside. Dad was a good pool player, so we eventually got a pool table, taught us how to play pool. Now, when we went to the YMCA, there was no problem.

My brother and I would go with him every week to the YMCA where he taught us how to swim. And we just had a ball. But he, I want to share this one incident because maybe it paints a picture. I remember when he was on his way home, he'd pull in the driveway and get out of the car and he was walking up the stairs. And I remember him looking like he was just exhausted, like he was carrying the weight of the world. He was like pulling two ton balls on his legs up the stairs. And then when he got up the stairs and when the door opened and he saw us all of a sudden this energy came over he was like you know and because again he wanted to make sure that he could give us all the energy that he had and it was like daddy's home daddy's home and we we just

you know hug and kiss him and it was it was remarkable when you went out of the house with him would people actually follow you around? Would they follow you in the car when you took walks in the neighborhood? Could you take walks in the neighborhood? Oh, I don't remember us doing that much. We used to ride bicycles and people always would speak. So when we rode our bicycles, we didn't really, people didn't necessarily follow us, but they always in the neighborhood of course they knew him so they wanted to speak to him and but rarely did we stop we would just ride our bikes and come back home I don't remember us walking much after after moving to Atlanta when you were

a kid you were horrifically and constantly bullied as a kid can you tell us about one of your bullies and his incredible battleship drawing and what you said to him that made him stop? And what's your advice to all the parents out there whose kids are being bullied? What should they be telling their kids? You know, it's a new, I'm going to hopefully answer that on the back end just let me share the story uh when i went to we were the first african-american kids to integrate a school in atlanta which was called spring street school and one of the young men um who seemed to be a lot bigger than me as a kid you know uh and and he was he would go through a lot of different gyrations he sometimes would go up and hit his hands against the wall hit his head so he I don't know what he was dealing with but I knew there were some issues he did not

like the fact that we as black kids were at the school. So he actually, you know, said, you know, why are these the N word? Why are they here at our school? This is our school. And he used to be pretty disenchanted just because black people were at his school. We used to play dodgeball and he seemed like he would try to destroy, you know, there were only a few blacks at the school. And so one day he was actually, he was a very talented artist. This probably was in third or fourth grade. And he was drawing a battleship and it was to perfection with the guns on the ship, everything.

And I asked him, I said I said what is that I knew what it was what is that battleship he never never looked up I said uh you know that that's uh that's pretty good he didn't look up he said you think so and so at that point there seemed to be a different kind of relationship developing. And ultimately, it felt like he became more kind to me because I had extended a kindness to him. And so he was reacting to something that may have been going on in his family life. And I think children on their own are fine. Today, we are at a different place because technology creates all kinds of things that are not good. And I think that we have to develop a real system to address bullying. I mean, tragically, kids are committing suicide. In fact, my daughter's 15 years old and one of her

friends growing up just recently committed suicide, not because of bullying. I don't really know what the issue is. Mental health is a real issue in our society and we've been slow in my judgment to address it. Thank goodness now we're finally doing it. It's never too late, but we are late in the game. We should have some years ago put systems in place, and maybe that would have helped to minimize even bullying. But I think we have to teach civility. We have to teach you should automatically assume

we're going to know how to treat our fellow human beings. It's clear to me that there's so many forces out there that show, and children, all of our children, will sort of try to manipulate us as parents, as you know, five children. Yeah, I mean, they're just trying. They're just trying this. Let's see how far I can go.

But that's the same thing that they're doing to their other fellow colleagues or their students. And I think when we change the environment, we change the tone and tune, we change the messaging, then we probably can have an opportunity to address something like bullying in a constructive way. So you're a parent now, you have your own children. So what's your advice to parents whose kids are being bullied? I was bullied. I stuttered. Everyone made fun of me. I didn't have a lot of friends. I come home crying daily from school. And my mom would say to me, you're going to be okay all the cool kids now that are making fun of you are not going to be so cool when you get older and it turns out by the

way she was a million percent right but it didn't really make it that much easier at the time I mean having the support of my mom definitely did but it still is very tough so what's your advice to to the parents out there whose kids are being bullied today and need their support? I think the ideal scenario is somehow we have to work to build a strong foundation within our children. Because if you know who you are, it's not an easy task, by the way but even with our own daughter who has a lot of things going on she still has certain insecurities and I think it's exacerbated by social media the competition the the worth somehow a parent has to really ground their their child i don't know if there is something other than you know the the teaching in the school system that every child is different and i don't know

that we do that in schools i mean stuttering is not something that one should laugh at, but maybe some have done that, some people. And some have made fun of a lot of people. And as you say, there's something about some children that overcome and it's no issue. There are others who don't overcome and may engage in tragic behavior like attempting suicide. So we've got to find a way to get it under control. Again, though, I think the first and primary issue is parents must do all that they can to fortify. You have to figure out how do I fortify my child and give them the ability to have a resilience factor. My father used to do this sermon and talk about resilience. He said, you

know, you have to be able to bend as branches do when winds and storms come, but they don't break because they have that resilience quality. It is very difficult to put, to, to, to actually institute that, but that is probably part of the answer. I mean, I'm sure there are more things, but I mean, I, every day we have to re attempt to fortify our daughter. How old were you when you realized that your dad was a big deal and was doing great things? And before his assassination, did you really know and understand what he was doing and what his mission was? Very good question. I would have to say that it probably truly dawned on me at the time of his assassination.

I certainly knew it because people were in and out of our home, whether it was reporters who were following him, whether it was young civil rights leaders like John Lewis, Stokely Carmichael, Julian Bond, just to name a few. Entertainers like Harry Belafonte, Sidney Poitier, Sammy Davis. They're just coming out to the house and saying, hey, guys, I'm here. Yeah, they weren't really hanging out. They were doing constructive things, but they were in and out of our home. They were meeting with Dad. In the kitchen, in the living room? It would be the, generally, it was the living room.

Sometimes it would be the kitchen. It just depended on what was going on. And sometimes we were not allowed to really interact. We were always allowed to say hello and sometimes listen. But some of the issues were so, I guess, significant at the time that a child needed to be sheltered. So my mom would have the four of us doing some other things. But I guess subconsciously is what I'm saying. I knew. But it was not until when dad was killed and this huge group of people came to our home.

Every person who was running for president of the United States came to pay their respects at dad's funeral. You know, Robert Kennedy was running for president. So Robert Kennedy and Alpho Kennedy, Jackie Onassis, along with Ted Kennedy and his then wife, Joan, the vice president of the United States came to the funeral. The governor of New York, Governor Nelson Rockefeller, and maybe one of his brothers, many actors and actresses from out here, Wilt Chamberlain, well, everybody, he was the tallest guy there, a seven-footer. But, you know, just I believe Charlton Heston, Marlon Brando, a number of people who had done things with that. And they all show up in Atlanta, Bill Cosby and Robert Culp. And we're an I spy at the time. And Bill Cosby said, you know, when he came and visited with mom, I'll spend some time with the children.

And so he gave us some comforting words that i wish i could remember them better but you know that's when i knew firmly that the work that dad was doing was quite uh you know i would say revolutionary but at the time you know I had to later on come back and listen to many of his speeches and sermons because I heard a lot of them when I was young, but I wasn't really focused in paying attention. And so to go back and listen to, you know, the speech on why he opposed the war in Vietnam from a moral perspective, to go back and listen to I Have a Dream. I've listened to I Have a Dream probably thousands of times. I haven't always heard it. And I'll say it this way. I've learned through talking to others and some

experiences that, you know, we certainly listen with our ears, but we hear with our heart. So whenever I hear, I probably only heard the I Have a Dream speech maybe a hundred times. I've listened thousands. I could recite some of it backward and forward, but I'm not always hearing it. Whenever I hear it, those hundred or so times I've heard it, I've shed tears, even to this moment. If I'm, I mean, I could listen to it right now, but I wouldn't necessarily be hearing it. But whenever I stop and hear it, it reduces me to tears.

And I guess what I'm saying is in our society, if we could listen and hear the hearts of people, we probably could change our society dramatically because what has happened is civility has left temporarily the public discourse space. And, you know, we want to counsel people instead of saying, you know, I don't know if I agree with that. But here are some areas where we can agree, as opposed to saying, well, you're out, you're done.

We're going to cancel you. That is counterproductive. That is very tragic. That is not a winnable scenario. We should want to create a win-win scenario in our society. This episode of In Search of Excellence is brought to you by Sandy.com. S-A-N-D-E-E.com. We're a Yelp for beaches and have created the world's most comprehensive beach resource by cataloging more than 100 categories of information for every beach in the world. More than 100,000 beaches in 212 countries. Sandy.com provides beach goers around

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And while he was away, would your mom stay home most of the time to take care of you and your three siblings? Or would she go to various beaches with him? So absolutely. Dad, it felt like, would travel often many days. And back then, it seemed that you could go to a destination and come back within the same day. And so we would, early in the morning, he may even leave before we went to school, certainly before we were up, 6 a.m. You know, he may be gone. He might be back by 7 or 8 at night. And some days he was gone, you know, a few days at a time.

So I would say that 80% of the time that he traveled, maybe 75, my mom was not with him. I think it was only, you know, 15% or so when they would travel together. Although he was constantly speaking with her on the, I'm told of stories that wherever he would go, he would seek her advice and counsel because what people don't realize, they met in Boston in the early 50s.

They were one, dad was at Boston University and mom was at Boston, Boston, the Boston Conservatory of Music. She was getting her master's. He was working on his Ph.D. And they met one day and their first meeting was like seven hours just of talking. Mom had already been exposed to the peace movement and been involved in peace, had read a lot of the books that he had read and I think they there was synergy there and they as I said you know you meet someone and you speak six hours that usually doesn't happen six or seven hours but that also, Dad would say that it was Mother who really had been out in front in terms of advocating for peace before he actually got started. He had been preparing himself intellectually and in terms of academically, but she actually had gone to demonstrations. So my point is, at some point,

when mom decided, okay, she was very upset initially about moving back to the South, because dad was called to his first church in Montgomery. And in his mind, you know, I want to take this opportunity because it's a very good church and I'm not going to have to live in the shadows of my grandfather was bigger than life. Everyone in Atlanta knew that. And so he didn't necessarily want to he wanted to establish himself. So he he thought he was going away, going to Montgomery, being in an obscure place, a smaller city, but yet he could kind of, you know, become his own person. He had no idea that he was it was going to be it was going to thrust him into the minds of the public by having to become the leader of the, you know, the whole Montgomery movement. When Miss Rosa Parks sat down on a bus and, you know, the community chose him.

He was like, no, I don't know if I want to do this. The community and, of course, his belief, deep calling with God, his connection that he had to pray about it and knew, OK, I will accept. Because there were other ministers, even his his close friend, Dr. Ralph Abernathy, who'd been in Montgomery already and established, but the community wanted dad's leadership. And so he became the leader, in a sense, one of the leaders, I should say, of the modern civil rights movement because of his devotion to the philosophy of nonviolence, his exposure to Mohandas K. Gandhi and others, and of course his Christian tradition of and being a pastor himself. And so he did assume that role and then he was thrust on a bigger stage becoming Times Man of the Year a couple of times, a couple to three times. Later on, you know, being chosen as the winner of the

Nobel Peace Prize, the youngest person at that time, and so on. I want to talk about one of your earliest memories as a child, which came after your parents had moved to Atlanta when you were very young. How old were you when you saw a cross burning on your front lawn? And what were you thinking that exact moment? What did your dad tell you when you saw it? You know, the interesting thing is, the only reason I even remember that incident

is because of pictures. I don't remember what was said. I probably was maybe three and a half. There's a picture of you standing in front of that burning cross. Yeah, but I was like three and a half or so. So I don't really remember. Later on, what I sort of remember was,

this is the behavior of people that do not want us to exist or want us to be here. And it's bigoted and unfortunate. I don't remember the actual conversation. I just remember, and again, I remember the incident just because of the picture. And what I do remember was the house where we stayed. And I remember that was that was in Atlanta near where the President Carter's library is. The house is no longer there. And we lived there from 1960 to 65. And then we moved to a location of the home that my mom lived in for 40 years. And it's now still there in Atlanta. But dad lived there from 65 till his death.

So I have more memories of that, but I don't remember those early. I wish I could tell you what he told me, things are gonna be all right. I'm sure he comforted us, but I don't remember the specific language. We're gonna talk about your dad's assassination in a few minutes. But before we do, I want to talk about the extreme and constant danger he faced before that, which I think most people don't really know about.

There were around a dozen attempts made on his life, including several bombings and targeted locations where he was supposed to appear. People often called your house and used the N-word and told your dad that if he didn't move in five days, they were going to kill your family. He was physically assaulted on multiple occasions while leading protests and marches. He was hit, shoved, had objects thrown at him, and was twice stabbed, once near fatally in 1958, in the year after you were born, and 10 years before he was assassinated. More specifically, from 1965 to 1968 and the three plus years prior to his death, the FBI recorded over 2,300 documented threats on his life.

Were you aware of the constant danger he was in and did you all constantly live in fear? And how did he deal with this constant danger and what did it teach you about courage so i would have to say that i don't certainly not consciously subconsciously because um the the phone calls um i was not born in 55 when our home was bombed. Excuse me. Or 56. I'm trying to remember now. I'm losing the date.

Yeah, because I was not born in the 57. 56, I believe. A bomb was thrown at the home in Montgomery. Molotov cocktail? I think it was a bomb. It just did not fully detonate. Okay. It was dynamite and maybe a half a stick or something.

But whatever reason, if it had detonated, it would have probably destroyed the whole house. But when it hit the porch, my mother and whoever was with her, she was with my sister Yolanda, and they got up and ran to the back of the house but fortunately it created a big hole on the porch but it didn't blow up the home so that happened to to our family and and then of course when I was born a year later 58 as you said, dad was stabbed. And he could have died then. I remember sort of more hearing about it because, again, I was very, very young and didn't go to New York. He was in New York doing a book signing, and a deranged woman came up. And he subconsciously was saying, this woman is something's not right and

before he knew it she said are you Martin Luther King jr. and their eyes were moving kind of rapidly and then she took the letter opener and stabbed him and had he sneezed it was in his a order he would not have made it but fortunately great doctors were able to remove the blade and and he healed now what is interesting is he had uh because they uh the surgery the way they um did the surgery and sewed him up it ended up being a cross on his chest So every time he would disrobe and I would see his chest, I could see this cross. I didn't actualize it until a later point, but I said, that's kind of amazing that as a man of God, instead of having to wear a cross, he already had one etched in his skin because of this the stabbing. But your higher point, mother and dad did the best

they could to shelter us from all of the perhaps potential difficulties. So I don't think I consciously realized, not consciously, I'm sure my subconscious mind it was implanted that this is dangerous but i you know for i'll give you an example uh dad and a lot of his colleagues would go to jail when there was something wrong so as a kid i thought okay if you want to make something right then you got to get a bunch of friends together and go to jail go to visit the jail because he was arrested i think it was 60 or 80 times oh he was arrested uh yeah third like like like 40 almost 40 times okay but my point is he would go to jail for things that he felt were wrong not because he had done something wrong although he had broken the laws that were unjust that he and others defined as unjust so i thought that if you wanted to correct things that

were wrong then you you know this is what i was really well you gotta go to jail dad's gonna go to jail and make it better for all of us and but i didn't see that that did not create this fear that in theory i could have had my brother answered the phone and did hear. I don't remember picking up the phone and hearing the N-word. I heard it being discussed, but I never, in fact, I always felt safe because we had a whole community of people who exhibited love to us. So I didn't think about that until I was much older. I'll say this, which is sort of interesting. Back in the 60s, maybe even up to the 80s, the news would have special bulletins. The very first special bulletin that I focused on was when dad was killed. So we were at home that April 4th day of 1968 on a Thursday

watching the evening news at about 7.05, and Walter Conkrate came on and announced, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. has just been shot. And we ran back to mom and Dad's room to get an explanation. And Mom was preparing to go to Memphis to be by Dad's side because she'd gotten a call from Ambassador Andrew Young and Jesse Jackson. So she was headed to the airport. We ran back.

And she, of course, couldn't tell us much at that time. She did physically go to the airport. And when she got to the airport, the mayor of Atlanta, she'd gone to the restroom and the mayor of Atlanta was walking toward her as she was headed to the gate and he she said that in her mind she knew the way he was walking and looking that she it wasn't going to be positive news and he's the one who told her that, Mrs. King, I'm so sorry to tell you Dr. King didn't make it. So she came back home that night and comforted Yolanda, Dexter, and myself. Bernice had gone to bed.

And that conversation, basically, she said something like, your father is going home to live with God, and he will not be able to kiss and hug you as he once did, but we will one day see him again. And sometimes when God's servants serve him as your father did, he brings them home to be with him and you know there was a lot of conversation after that i i don't remember all of that but i do remember those words which were comforting at the time and then the next four days um five days that was thursday friday saturday i believe, Saturday or so.

Dad's remains were brought back. Mom went to Memphis to get them, and we were at the airport. And then Monday, April 9th or 8th, it might have been the 8th, he was to have led a march in Memphis. Harry Belafonte chartered a small jet, and we flew up to Memphis, and she led that march. And we walked in Memphis with the sanitation workers, and she did a speech, and we came back to Atlanta. And the next day, April 9th, was his funeral. So what's amazing is to have had the courage to do that.

No one had been captured for Dad's murder. I just remember when we arrived at the airport, the National Guardsmen surrounded us. It was kind of a frightening. That was scary because they were there to protect us, but they had these bayonets, the guns with the knives on them, and there were, I don't know, 20 or so who surrounded us. And as we moved around, I guess there was military, it felt like, everywhere to protect us. But I just marvel at that courage that Mom had to go and continue dad's work in light of the

fact. And in my mind, at some point later on, that solidified the true kind of partnership they had. Because most people during the grieving process would not be expected. Okay, this work is not done. This is what Martin would have wanted me to do. Are you looking for your next great gift to surprise a friend, colleague, or loved one? Bliss Beaches makes the perfect gift. This best-selling bright and beautiful coffee table book by Randall Kaplan features stunning drone photography

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the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in front of the imposing 19-foot marble statue of Abraham Lincoln, who was basically looking over his shoulder in front of 250,000 people who had traveled to the march from all over the United States. It is considered one of the first televised American political speeches and is one of the most influential and well-known speeches in history. It helped push us towards the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which was signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson on July 2nd, 1964. The act outlawed major forms of discrimination against racial, ethnic, national, and religious minorities, as well as women, and also ended unequal voter registration requirements and segregations in schools,

the workforce, and public places. Did you go to the speech, and if not, how many times have you listened to it and watched it, and what does it mean to you? You said that it makes you cry when you hear it. Why does it make you cry every time, and what did you take from the speech and how has it influenced your life?

So, first of all, I was not there. What I do remember was the excitement that existed and the anticipation that this incredible demonstration was potentially going to bring people together. You know, dad and mom were always about how do we bring people together to creatively solve difficult issues. And it happened because you had this large group of people who nonviolently were demonstrating for citizenship, the Civil Rights Act. And again, as you stated, labor, religious leaders, some entertainment, some of the entertainment community and blacks and whites. And, you know, there were every ethnic group that was an American

citizen many of them came that day and I think that what dad prophesied and galvanized was this message that everyone could relate to. And what he did was he took what is written in the Constitution, Declaration of Independence, to consolidate all this information and say this should apply to everyone, not just one ethnic group or one person or one gender, every human being. And then he was able to catapult it into this vision that everyone, it was like painting a picture, a perfect picture for what we haven't achieved, but we can. And he used his children

by saying, you know, one of the most profound segments, my four little children can live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character. Well, he wasn't just talking about us. He was really talking about all children. And that resonated and resonates even to this day, you know, particularly when we are living in a nation where some are saying we need to extract certain parts of history and not teach them. We've always been a society of freedom, and people should have a right to read and maybe interpret and know full history. I mean, there's an old saying, people that do not remember their history

are doomed to repeat the mistakes of the past. And so we, as a society, want to kind of whitewash certain things, and that's just, it's sad that we've arrived at a place that is going backward as opposed to a place that is looking forward the universe is moving forward everything in society is moving forward humankind is saying oh no we got to go back we got to stop and i i think that's personally i think it's counterproductive

like for example dad's last one of his last messages, one of the last messages that he delivered at the Riverside Church, I'm sorry, at the National Cathedral was maybe, I believe, March like 30th. And he was killed April 4th. It might have been the 31st of March in 1968. And the name of the speech was Remaining Awake Through a Great Revolution. So now our society has taken being awake and said, oh, we don't need to be awake. That's moving too fast or too far or in the wrong direction. It is against our values. Well, at some point, we as a society have to modify or else humankind may destroy itself and that doesn't mean that you have to accept everything that somebody does or you have to

embrace it but people have a right to do what they want to do as long as they're not hurting anyone else. And I think that we have now drawn a line in the sand that I think is moving us in a direction that, you know, is not productive. I think we need to keep having discussions. Again, we can always disagree. Dad taught us and mom how to disagree without being disagreeable. But today we've lost that because we go from zero to 100 if we disagree with someone and we want to malign and denigrate and destroy as opposed to saying, as I said earlier briefly, you know, I don't know if I agree with that. But let's find some common ground and maybe we can start to really build a real relationship where we have common ground. We may not agree on 20 issues, but there's got to be one that we as human beings can agree. Let's start there and build a bridge. 14 months after his I Have a Dream speech and 10 months after the Civil Rights Act was passed, your dad was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

He was 35 years old, the youngest person to receive that prestigious award at that time. And he donated a $50,000-plus prize that came with it to the civil rights movement. What did it mean to him, and what does it mean to you today? Well, I think it meant a validation of what he was attempting to create, he and his team, which includes my mom, in our nation and world. And that is to create a just and peaceful society where we could live together as brothers and sisters and friends and families. And so that designation sort of validated that he was on the right road. I think it also, it meant from dad, from dad's perspective, he was never engaged to be validated, by the way, because in his mind, I'm doing the work that God has chosen me to do. This is what, and if you want to stop me, you can do whatever you want to, to attempt to, but that's not going to stop me from doing what i believe i need to do to create a better world for all of god's children so but but again the ward

does i mean it does give you a significant validation i forget how many persons have won the prize totally but what dad and his team were doing was quite profound because if you think about people had gone to Vietnam and some had fought in World War I, II, and some African-Americans in all of these wars. Some of those guys were munitions experts. So particularly after Vietnam, they could have come back and said, this society, they want me to fight for democracy around the world.

I'm going to blow up some things here. Because of what he talked about and lifted up, they chose not to do that. And in a real sense, what he talked about and lived and wanted to create perhaps helped to save our nation. Because if you had trained military persons deciding to do overthrow the country, it could be terrible. So his view was there's always a better way to resolve conflict than to pick up arms. Not talking about personally defending your space or someone doing something to you, but a group of people could have come together and said, you know, we're going to do some real harm and had the expert training because of they were military munition specialists so in a sense i think dad helped to to save our our nation and i also think that today that message

is needed even more than than back then well i can't say more but I can see it's equally needed today. We sort of turn away from that because if we had learned that, Dad used to say we as a society must learn nonviolence or we may face nonexistence. And it feels like in some areas we're working on not existing. And that's just not good. That's not good for our children, for generations yet unborn. We need to reflect something else than what we are reflecting today as a society. When family members or friends have children of loved ones who are murdered, most people have a lifetime of hate for the person who murdered their loved one. Your mom had a different view.

What was her view, and what did she teach you about this? And what's your advice to those who have a lifetime of hate for people who have harmed our loved ones? So I think I'm in an unusual and unique position and my family. What I mean by that is that, first of all, dad and mom taught us to forgive when dad was killed. Dad was killed in 1968, April 4th, as I've said. And it would have been easy to embrace hatred and hostility. But, you know, I had, I had, I'd go to church and hear my father and grandfather talk about the power of love, the power of forgiveness. And so now something visited us, which was the most traumatic experience of our lives.

My grandfather and grandmother losing their son, my mother losing her husband, and the four of us losing a father. How do you handle that? And Mother's tradition, you know, she taught us to forgive. You know, nonviolence teaches you to dislike the evil act, but still love the individual. And so, but I had this example, these examples reinforced. Now, what many don't know is a year after my father was killed, my father's brother, my uncle, mysteriously drowned. And then four years after that, my father's mother was assassinated in the church. She was the organist. A guy came in, pulled out a gun, killed her, and killed one of the deacons in the church.

So not only was my father, but my grandmother and uncle in like five years. And let me add this because i i left it out back when i was growing up special bulletins would come on this is some trauma that i personally had to overcome and you back then it meant something you know now every 30 minutes is a special bulletin so you're you know it doesn't mean you don't pay attention. It's just that they really meant something. It was a special bulletin when Dad was killed, when my uncle was mysteriously drowned. It came on, special bulletin, you know, Reverend A.D. King, the brother of Dr. Martin Luther King, has just drowned. When my grandmother was shot, I was in Washington, D.C. Special Bulletin came over the news channel.

Special Bulletin, you know, Mrs. Martin Luther King, Sr. has just been shot. So anytime I heard Special Bulletin for a number of years, probably until I was in my 20s, I was like, I would cringe because I thought, oh, did something else happen to our family? That's the trauma that you experience when something is forecasted in the news and you've experienced it two or three times. In 1984, I was in one of the African countries and I was traveling. I want to say Ethiopia, and it came across the radio that my grandfather had just had a heart attack. And fortunately, he didn't die then. I was able to come back to Atlanta. And then a few weeks later, he did finally pass. So for a long time,

these special bulletins had a traumatic meaning. I wanted to give that context just from a traumatic standpoint that I had to overcome. So I remember probably after my grandmother was killed, my grandfather went to the jail where the man who killed her was being held and he said son why did you kill my wife because he wanted to he's trying to understand um this was 1974 dad was killed in 68 so six years later and the man looked at him and said when i I get out of here, I'm going to come back and kill you. And my grandfather was very close to the sheriff and the deputies because they allowed this guy to be, he was chained, and they allowed him to go in there,

and they very much loved my grandfather. Granddaddy had a big cane. My cousin and my brother accompanied him to the jail and he could have taken that cane and and hit actually actually I'm sorry it wasn't in the jail I think it was in the mental ward of the hospital which has like a cell area for those. And so they would not have minded if he had taken his cane and hit that man in the head. That would have been fine. It would have never been recorded.

That's how much love they had. But what Granddaddy did, and he said, Son, I'm going to pray for you. Now, can you imagine saying, I'm going to pray for you after you say, I just killed your wife, and I'm going to pray for you. Now, can you imagine saying, I'm going to pray for you after you say, I just killed your wife and I'm going to come back and get you. So what that does is that validates,

I believe in forgiveness, you know, and he went on further to say, he said, I refuse to allow any person to reduce me to hatred. The man that killed my lovely wife, nor the man that killed my son. I refuse to allow them to reduce me to hatred. I love everybody. I'm every man's brother. That was so powerful. Now, again, we had already been taught this in the home by dad and mom earlier on and then it was reinforced by going to church and Sunday school and then it was thoroughly reinforced by granddaddy's actions and so I'm not advocating that everybody has

to do what I chose to do but I can't imagine how hostile and bitter I would be if I was harboring hatred. And so I have to find a way to release and love. And no matter what one goes through in life, you can still overcome. There are people who have gone through even much further worse than what I'm experiencing. And yet, there's a quality, that resilience quality, that you can't purchase. You know, if you say you have faith, you really have to turn to your faith and believe. And it doesn't mean it's easy. It's not. Now, I remember the communities we see this in from time to time.

I believe it was an Amish community some few years back. And some guy came in deranged and just had a gun and shot several and killed several children. And, you know, we often, what we hear in our society on the news, mainstream, is we're going to get revenge. We're going to go and kill someone, and we do it. We as a society have done this over and over and over as humans. But when I see that kind of behavior, I was like, oh, my God. They immediately, or in a very short order forgave this man. And they, they, I mean, it's just a very powerful example. I wish more of us

could embrace that, but I understand if you don't. In other words, I, I could have, my dad was killed by a white man. My grandmother was killed by a black man. So I could have just hated everybody. But what good does that really do in terms of fostering something that's positive? I want to always, I hope to always land on something that's positive. And I'm not saying that that's what you or anybody has to do. I'm just saying that's what's worked for me. Let's talk about your name. Your dad always wanted you to have the same name as him. And when your parents named you Martin Luther King III, your mom had some serious reservations about naming you after your famous father

because she realized the burdens it can create on a child. Did you feel that burden as a child? And do you feel it now? And if you didn't have your name, would you have dedicated your life to following in his footsteps? Or would you be doing something else? So first of all, again, I would have to say, maybe subconsciously I felt the challenges. I don't think consciously.

And here's what happened. My mom liberated me when I was a young man. She used to say, and I probably was in my teens, you don't have to go to Morehouse College where your father went, but I did. You don't have to become a minister, which I haven't felt the call to the ministry. You don't have to be a human and civil rights leader, which I have chosen to do, but just be your best self and we will support you in every way we can. That was, that was sort of freedom because if I woke up attempting to be my father every day and feel, fulfill, fill his shoes, I would fail miserably and I would feel miserable. So my mom liberated me by saying that

to me and, and just be your, the best Martin that you can be, whatever that is. So it didn't mean that I had to go into following him, but I, I chose to. Now I would like, love to tell you, oh, absolutely. I'd be doing all that I'm doing if I had not grown up in an environment to see what I saw with my parents. But I don't know about that. I honestly don't know the answer to that. I would love to say there's no question because of who I personally am as Martin. But quite frankly, maybe not. When someone walks up to you and they introduce yourself, you know, sometimes they say, oh, I'm Randy or I'm Martin.

And you have to throw their last name in there sometimes too. When people don't know you and they say, I'm Martin, do you say I'm Martin King or do you say I'm Martin Luther King? And is there a reaction always like, whoa, who are you? I rarely, what happens more than not is people come up and say, they know, but they don't want to say. So you look like, are you?

And then I say, yes, I'm Martin, Martin King. And every now and then people say, well, I know your face, but I'm not really quite sure. And then I'll say, because I get confused. It's oftentimes certain different people. I see you. Are you a politician? No, I have been. Well, I know I've seen you, but I'm not sure.

And then I'll say, well, I'm Martin. That's right. I know. That's your, and then I'll say, well, I'm Martin. That's right. I knew, you know, so my higher point is I generally, I've always been a, I always wanted to be treated just like everyone else. And so I never really used my name as a calling card. because I have some level of notoriety, people come up every day and oftentimes they'll speak and thank me for the work that you and your family have done. But I don't, it's rare to say, oh, I'm Martin Luther King III, unless there are certain circumstances where I've sort of done that, but that's rare. Thanks for listening to part one of my amazing conversation with Martin Luther King III, the son of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Be sure to turn next week to part two of my

awesome conversation with Martin.