Martin Luther King III (born October 23, 1957) is an American
human rights advocate and community activist. He is the eldest son and oldest living child of
civil rights leader
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and
Coretta Scott King. His siblings are
Dexter Scott King, Rev. Dr.
Bernice Albertine King, and the late
Yolanda Denise King. King attended
The Galloway School and went on to
Morehouse College, which was the same school his father, his grandfather and his great-grandfather attended. He received his B.A. in Political Science from Morehouse in 1979.
Life
Early life and career
Martin Luther King III was born on October 23, 1957 to human rights advocate
Martin Luther King, Jr. and
Coretta Scott King. His mother had reservations about naming him after his famous father, "realizing the burdens it can create for the child," but King, Jr. always wanted to name his son Martin Luther III. He was raised in
Vine City, an urban neighborhood in
Atlanta,
Georgia, and was ten years old when his father was
assassinated. King lived with his mother in his childhood home until his adulthood. As an adult, King was a shy man who rarely socialized, and friends have claimed he tends to overwork, in part due to the pressure to live up to his father's name; one friend, Rev. E. Randel T. Osburn, said of King, "Watching him is like watching somebody trying to outrun...
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