Yolanda King, daughter of Martin Luther King Jr

YOLANDA KING, the firstborn child of the first family of the civil rights movement, who honoured that legacy through acting and advocacy, died last week.

She was 51. The daughter of the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr and Coretta Scott King, Yolanda King, appeared in numerous films, including ‘Ghosts of Mississippi’, and played Rosa Parks in the 1978 miniseries ‘King’.”She was an actress, author, producer, advocate for peace and non-violence, who was known and loved for her motivational and inspirational contributions to society,” the King family said.”She used her acting ability to dramatise the essence of the movement,” said Representative John Lewis (Democrat-Georgia), who worked alongside King’s father.”She could motivate and inspire and tell the story.She made it real, made it part of her.I think her father would’ve been very, very proud of her.”Yolanda Denise King – nicknamed Yoki by the family – was born on November 17 1955, in Montgomery, Alabama.She was just two weeks old when Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a bus, leading to the Montgomery bus boycott spearheaded by her father.When the family’s house was firebombed eight weeks later, she and her mother were at home but were not hurt.She was a young girl during her father’s famous stay in the Birmingham jail.She was 12 years old when he was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee, in 1968.”She lived with a lot of the trauma of our struggle,” said the Reverend Jesse Jackson.”The movement was in her DNA.”Yolanda King founded and led Higher Ground Productions.On its Web site, she described her mission as encouraging personal growth and positive social change.”She didn’t want to be a child of the movement, she wanted to be what God wanted her to be,” Young said.”She could never escape being a child of the movement, though.She was really feeling that she didn’t just want to be the daughter of Coretta and Martin King.That was her struggle.”In 1963, when she was 7, her father mentioned her and her siblings at the March on Washington, saying: “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the colour of their skin but by the content of their character.”Her brother Martin III was born in 1957; brother Dexter in 1961; and sister Bernice in 1963.King was a 1976 graduate of Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts, where she majored in theatre and Afro-American studies.Nampa-APThe daughter of the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr and Coretta Scott King, Yolanda King, appeared in numerous films, including ‘Ghosts of Mississippi’, and played Rosa Parks in the 1978 miniseries ‘King’.”She was an actress, author, producer, advocate for peace and non-violence, who was known and loved for her motivational and inspirational contributions to society,” the King family said.”She used her acting ability to dramatise the essence of the movement,” said Representative John Lewis (Democrat-Georgia), who worked alongside King’s father.”She could motivate and inspire and tell the story.She made it real, made it part of her.I think her father would’ve been very, very proud of her.”Yolanda Denise King – nicknamed Yoki by the family – was born on November 17 1955, in Montgomery, Alabama.She was just two weeks old when Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a bus, leading to the Montgomery bus boycott spearheaded by her father.When the family’s house was firebombed eight weeks later, she and her mother were at home but were not hurt.She was a young girl during her father’s famous stay in the Birmingham jail.She was 12 years old when he was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee, in 1968.”She lived with a lot of the trauma of our struggle,” said the Reverend Jesse Jackson.”The movement was in her DNA.”Yolanda King founded and led Higher Ground Productions.On its Web site, she described her mission as encouraging personal growth and positive social change.”She didn’t want to be a child of the movement, she wanted to be what God wanted her to be,” Young said.”She could never escape being a child of the movement, though.She was really feeling that she didn’t just want to be the daughter of Coretta and Martin King.That was her struggle.”In 1963, when she was 7, her father mentioned her and her siblings at the March on Washington, saying: “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the colour of their skin but by the content of their character.”Her brother Martin III was born in 1957; brother Dexter in 1961; and sister Bernice in 1963.King was a 1976 graduate of Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts, where she majored in theatre and Afro-American studies.Nampa-AP