In his memoir “Growing Up King,” Dexter Scott King wrote, “I was born worried. I was born anxious,” although he stopped short of explaining the source of his worry or anxiety, which may have been an ominous foreboding. Now, the world learns of his battle with prostate cancer. The younger son of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Coretta Scott King died Monday in his sleep in Malibu, said his wife, Leah Weber King. He was 62.
“He gave it everything and battled the terrible disease until the end,” she said. “As with all the challenges in his life, he faced this hurdle with bravery and might.”
His brother, Martin Luther King III, said in a statement, “The sudden shock is devastating. It is hard to have the right words at a moment like this. Please keep the entire King family in your prayers and in particular Dexter’s wife, Leah Weber King.”
The Rev. Al Sharpton of the National Action Network was among the first from the activist community to echo the heartbreaking news, but he said he was “comforted by the knowledge [that] he is reunited with his parents and sister. Dexter was only seven when his hero, his role model, and, most importantly, his father was taken from us. He turned that pain into activism, however, and dedicated his life to advancing the dream” all of his family members embraced.
Besides the assassination of his father, one of the other challenges Dexter King faced, and that his wife referred to, was attention deficit disorder (ADD). “I found I have a neurological chemical reaction or chemical illness that affects me from time to time” he wrote. “It was worse when I was younger, but today my altered way of life makes it manageable. Traditional medicine doesn’t have a clue as to how to address this ‘invisible disability’; a lot of the ADD kids you hear about today are called Ritalin kids. Doctors tried to put me on Ritalin as a child. Mother wouldn’t allow it. Some medication is worse than the symptoms.”
The anxiety, worry, ADD, and prostate cancer did not impede his commitment to civil and human rights, or carrying on his parent’s desire for a just society, most demonstrably through his leadership at the King Center. “I seemed to be the one who took the most interest in the Center, they said,” Dexter wrote. “Plus, I was the ‘why’ guy. We all had gotten a little bit of something from our father. Yolanda got his sense for the dramatic, for the theatrical, and his great feel for people. Martin got his name and his ability to canvas and to be diplomatic and to advocate, and also his moderacy; Bernice got his deeply rooted spirituality, his religiosity, his philosophical bent if I can put it that way, and, I must add his oratorical ability.”
Dexter talked about the sibling rivalry among them that was typical of children eager to get the attention of their parents. Later, those differences would erupt again after the death of his sister, Yolanda, and their mother, but they were never personal, and by 2016, they had been resolved.
Along with his writing, and a memoir with Ralph Wiley, Dexter had several film credits as an actor and producer. He even portrayed his father in the television movie “The Rosa Parks Story,” and quite admirably.