The Independent Women’s Forum wishes to express our deep sadness on learning of the death of Yolanda King, the oldest child of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. Ms. King, who died late Tuesday in Santa Monica, was only 51 at the time of her death. A babe in arms when the King family residence in Montgomery, Ala. was bombed by segregationists, Mrs. King grew into an admired and much-loved woman who followed her own dream and whose legacy would no doubt have made her famous father proud.
An author, peace activist who never wavered from her father’s belief in social change through non-violence and actress, who played Rosa Parks in a 1978 mini-series on Martin Luther King, Ms. King was twelve when her father was assassinated in 1968 in Memphis. A piece distributed by WSBTV notes that she loved a particular sermon by her father because it emphasized “the three-dimensions of a complete life,” which were self-love, love of others, and love of God. “It is a blending of those three that develops the complete life, as my father did,” she told interviewer Mitch Horowitz.
An indomitable woman not cowed by her family’s travails, she will be sorely missed. “She was a princess and she walked and carried herself like a princess,” the Rev. Joseph Lowery, former head of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and a close friend of the King family, told the Atlanta Journal & Constitution. “She was a reserved and quiet person who loved acting.”
No cause of death has been given yet. Ms. King, who was preceded in death by her mother, Coretta Scott King, leaves behind a sister, the Rev. Bernice A. King, and two brothers, Martin Luther King III and Dexter Scott King. Our deepest sympathy goes to the King family.