Home >  A & E >  Books

Sunday, March 02, 2003

By Tara Bradley-Steck

This is not "Mommy Dearest."

	"Growing Up King: An Intimate Memoir" By Dexter Scott King with Ralph Wiley Time Warner, 6 hours $25.98 on cassette, abridged

"Growing Up King" does not reveal any deep or heretofore undisclosed secrets about the man who was one of the most significant Americans of the 20th century. Indeed, Dexter King himself had to rely on family and friends for much of the information he offers about his father, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., who was assassinated in 1968, when Dexter was 6.

He does, however, attempt to explain many of his family's views and actions: the family's contention that James Earl Ray was not a lone assassin; their fight with CBS and others to retain the copyright to King's speeches; and their ongoing tug-of-war with the National Park Service over a King memorial in Atlanta.

King also gives an intimate portrait of his own life -- his professional and personal failures and successes as well as the responsibility of trying to live up to his father's reputation, moral code and sense of mission.

Dexter King spent years trying to distance himself from his family, dropping out of Morehouse College and holding various jobs, including that of an Atlanta police officer, until he finally realized his own purpose in life -- to promote his father's message of nonviolent struggle.

Unfortunately, King lacks the oratory skills of his father, whose impassioned speeches, delivered more than 35 years ago, still give me goose bumps. The only time Dexter King puts any oomph into his performance is when he recites a passage from his father's speech, "I've Been to the Mountaintop."