Growing Up King
An Intimate Memoir
-
-
3.0 • 1 Rating
-
-
- $11.99
-
- $11.99
Publisher Description
In the bestselling tradition of such family portraits as Brooke Hayward's Haywire and Christopher Dickey's Summer of Deliverance comes a disarmingly candid memoir from the youngest son of Martin Luther King, Jr.
Dexter King was only seven when an assassin's bullet took his father's life, shattering the boy's childhood. And as he stumbled into adolescence, both the tragedy and the weight of living up to "the King legacy" would exact an additional toll. Challenged with undiagnosed A.D.D. and rocked once again by his grandmother's murder, King became emotionally isolated and, in his early 30s, sought answers from an inspiring source: the teachings of Martin Luther King, Jr. Now, in this intimate portrait, Dexter King reveals for the first time what it was like growing up in the shadow of greatness, and how his father's lessons continue to inspire and inform his own ideas on race in America today.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Scott King, the youngest son of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., grew up in a world that was forever changing as a direct result of his father's life and, more importantly, of his father's death. In this memoir of his own life, King attempts to illuminate the significance of growing up under the weight of his father's legacy, struggling to live up to everything his last name has come to stand for. He sadly records his failure to finish his degree at Morehouse College, a tradition for male members of the King family going back to "Great-granddaddy A.D. Williams was in the Morehouse class of 1898, the second graduating class of its existence." He recounts his first attempt to serve as president of the King Center for Non-Violent Social Change, where he was elected to the position amid controversy from the board of directors, and subsequently resigned after five months. However, King fails to take the reader on any sort of coherent emotional journey through his struggle to become a "King," and the narrative is marred by clunky transitions, uninteresting digressions and a sometimes combative tone at odds with the gravity King gives his subject matter. There are terrific accounts here of the conspiracy theories surrounding his father's assassination, the famous political and entertainment figures that have always been a part of King's circle and an extended family that helped to support and shape the children of a legend, but they are mired in tedious details that detract from the story King is trying to tell.
