Dexter Scott King, the younger son of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and Coretta Scott King, died Monday after battling prostate cancer.
The King Center in Atlanta, which Dexter King served as chairman, said the 62-year-old son of the civil rights icon died at his home in Malibu, California. His wife, Leah Weber King, said in a statement that he died “peacefully in his sleep.”
The third of the Kings’ four children, Dexter King was named for the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama, where his father served as a pastor when the Montgomery bus boycott launched him to national prominence in the wake of the 1955 arrest of Rosa Parks.
Dexter King was just 7 years old when his father was assassinated in April 1968 while supporting striking sanitation workers in Memphis, Tennessee. In his 2004 memoir, “Growing Up King,” Dexter King recalled his father’s slaying as the end of a carefree childhood.
I feel old, because I don’t feel like 62 is young
Maybe not young, but too young to die of a treatable cancer.
I agree. This is sad news ofcourse. But 62 is not a bad age to go. The bad part is that now I’m just that much closer to my own demise. I mean I could croak tomorrow and not only nobody would give a shit, but also I wouldn’t be that young anyway. Anyway I hope we get to learn some of his achievements and life tribulations.