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King's youngest: Weighty legacy a blessing
ATLANTA, Georgia (CNN) -- Bearing the surname of America's premier civil rights figure was not always easy, Martin Luther King Jr.'s youngest son said on the day honoring his slain father. But the name has been a blessing more than a burden, Dexter King recalled Monday on CNN's "NewsNight With Aaron Brown." After his father's killing, some people would tell young Dexter they expected him to follow in his father's considerable footsteps, he said. "People would say, 'I want you to be just like your father,' or 'You should be a minister,'" said King, 41. Instead, Dexter King became the president, chairman and CEO of the King Center, a landmark tourist spot and teaching facility standing nearly in the shadow of his father's old church in Atlanta, Georgia. He also recently co-wrote a book about his family and father, "Growing Up King: An Intimate Memoir." "We continue to educate the world about his teachings of nonviolence," King said. "We want [MLK's teachings] to be intact for generations yet unborn." King, who portrayed his father in a 2002 film, "The Rosa Parks Story," was born in 1961 in Montgomery, Alabama. He recalled his earliest years: a period roiling with uncertainty, the threat of violence and the specter of retaliation against his father's campaign for equality. Dexter, his three siblings and mother "always knew there was danger lurking," he said. "We always did our best to try and cope with it." Just how dangerous became clear April 4, 1968. Dexter was 7, watching television with his brother, Martin III, when a news flash interrupted regular programming, the younger King recalled. An announcer said the name of a man they knew well and said that man had been shot in Memphis, Tennessee. They ran into another room where their mother, Coretta Scott King, was on the phone to Memphis. "It was a very chaotic and traumatic period," he said. Even at that young age, he said, he knew his father was engaged in something epic. His father and mother spent "quality time" talking with their children about what the minister was doing, Dexter King recalled. "We knew it was important," he said.
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