M. L. King Jr.’s Son Quotes Father in Taking SCLC Post

The eldest son of Martin Luther King Jr. sounded like his father Saturday, standing before the Southern Christian Leadership Conference as its new president and preaching racial equality.

Martin Luther King III recited a part of his father’s “I Have a Dream” speech in which the slain civil rights leader expressed the wish that his young children would someday live in a world without discrimination.

“As one of those four little children, I must remind you that while my father clearly had a dream, that one day is not today. The day that my father dreamed of has not been realized,” King said to a cheering audience of about 200.

At 40, an age his father never reached, King was elected Saturday by the civil rights organization’s board of directors as its fourth president. King will assume leadership Jan. 15, his father’s birthday.

King faces high expectations as he takes over an organization that has failed to recapture its prominence since his father’s assassination in 1968 at age 39.

King takes over from the Rev. Joseph Lowery, who co-founded the SCLC with King’s father, the Rev. Ralph David Abernathy Sr. and others in 1957. Lowery was president for 20 years and announced last summer that he was stepping down.

King said he would visit chapters across the country and meet with community leaders to develop a plan on racism, education, attacks on affirmative action and overpopulation of prisons.

Those who know King question whether he has the ambition and take-charge attitude to reinvigorate the SCLC.

“I think you’re going to see a different Martin than you’ve ever seen before,” King said. “Not that my ideas are going to be totally different than my father’s, but I’m 40 years old and I have to learn to be the best Martin I can be.

“Unfortunately, we are always compared with those who have come before us.”