Dexter Scott King, son of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and Coretta Scott King, has died after battling prostrate cancer.
According to AP News, the King Center in Atlanta, which Dexter King served as chairman, said the 62-year-old son of the civil rights icon died at his home in Malibu, California on Monday.
His wife, Leah Weber King, said in a statement that he died “peacefully in his sleep.”
The third of the Kings’ four children, Dexter King was named for the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama, where his father served as a pastor when the Montgomery bus boycott launched him to national prominence in the wake of the 1955 arrest of Rosa Parks.
Dexter King was just 7 years old when his father was assassinated in April 1968 while supporting striking sanitation workers in Memphis, Tennessee.
In his 2004 memoir, “Growing Up King,” Dexter King recalled his father’s slaying as the end of a carefree childhood.
“Ever since I was seven, I’ve felt I must be formal,” he wrote, adding: “Formality, seriousness, certitude — all these are difficult poses to maintain, even if you’re a person with perfect equilibrium, with all the drama life throws at you.”
