Concern for His Safety Cited : King’s Son Won’t Be in Fontana Parade

An organizer of a Jan. 17 celebration here to honor Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday said Tuesday that plans to have the slain civil rights leader’s son join them in a parade have been changed largely out of fear for his safety, although Martin Luther King III still will address a nondenominational church service.

A spokeswoman for King in Atlanta, however, denied that safety played a role in the decision and said it was due to “scheduling problems.”

The Rev. David B. Rodriguez, pastor of the First Presbyterian Church of Fontana and chairman of the Fontana Ministerial Assn., which is sponsoring the rally, told a press conference here that he and others were alarmed by a recent recorded telephone message by a white supremist group in San Diego County that urged a counterdemonstration in the city that day.

Rodriguez said original plans called for King, a Fulton County, Ga., commissioner, to join in a 4 p.m. parade through downtown Fontana and then address an interfaith service at the city’s Performing Arts Center at 6 p.m.

However plans were changed and now call for King only to speak at the service, Rodriguez said. He told reporters that the change was made following disclosure of the tape-recorded message.

A woman who handles King’s speaking engagements, however, said in a telephone interview that “scheduling problems” with King’s flight from Atlanta made it impossible for him to arrive in time for the 4 p.m. parade.

“The decision for him not to participate in the parade came prior to our awareness of the tape,” Sheila Pierce said. “Since we became aware of it, of course, we are concerned . . . but not enough to cancel his apperance.”

“If she (Pierce) said that, I believe her,” said Rodriguez when informed of the apparent discrepancy. “But from my perspective it was because of the tape.”

Nonetheless, the Fontana Police Department, with the help of up to 20 San Bernardino County sheriff’s deputies, intends to be out in force on the day of the parade.

“We will certainly do everything we can to provide the best protection we can on this,” said Lt. Alan Fowlkes, a Police Department spokesman. He added that while Ku Klux Klan members had staged “small rallies here back in the early 1980s . . . we have no information that anyone opposed to the march will be in Fontana that day.”