The Voices of King

Ep. 13: Bernice King

What a way to be introduced to the world. On April 9, 1968, just five days after her father was assassinated and two weeks after her 5th birthday, Bernice King found herself slumped on her mother’s lap. There she was, the youngest of Coretta and Martin Luther King Jr.’s four children, in a packed Ebenezer Baptist Church, dressed in a white dress. Her eyes were expressionless. A baby, mourning a father. Although a photographer from Ebony Magazine captured the moment, during a 2008 interview with the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, King strained to remember the range of emotions she felt the day that her father was buried. Moneta Sleet Jr.’s photograph of Bernice and Coretta Scott King won the 1969 Pulitzer Prize for Feature Photography, making him the first African-American man to win the Pulitzer and the first African American to win award for journalism. King recollections of that moment was part of an oral history project marking the then 40th anniversary of King’s death. King was one of 13 people that The AJC sat down with to record their stories and shed light on the life and death of the civil rights leader. On the April 4 anniversary of King’s death, we re-released all of the interviews as a 13-part podcast [https://www.ajc.com/news/atlanta-news/voices-of-king-podcast-debuts-with-journalist-earl-caldwell/BKJ5OH2ZEBA4FPLZSMDHHYE2UU/] hosted by Multimedia Journalist Ryon Horne. The ground-breaking series featured intimate conversations with family, friends and colleagues of King who each gave us a glimpse inside of the history that King was making. Along with Bernice King, we talked to her brother Martin Luther King III and her aunt, Christine King Farris. We also sat down with Xernona Clayton, Tyrone Brooks, Earl Caldwell and Andrew Young. But of particular value were the conversations with people who are no longer with us, like Kathryn Johnson, Billy Kyle, Juanita Abernathy, Ralph David Abernathy, the Rev. Joseph Lowery and Congressman John Lewis. Each of the 13 episodes is available through the Unapologetically ATL newsletter [https://www.ajc.com/unapologetically-atl/], but you can also subscribe to “The Voices of King” on Spotify [https://open.spotify.com/show/05GEf1rRDGaSOjqcUHJjlx], Apple Podcasts [https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-voices-of-king/id1606036553], Google Podcasts [https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5tZWdhcGhvbmUuZm0vQ01HQTY0MjUyMTAzMjU], Amazon Music, [https://music.amazon.com/] Stitcher [https://www.stitcher.com/show/the-voices-of-king] or wherever you get your podcasts so you never miss an episode. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices [https://megaphone.fm/adchoices]

Ep. 12: Xernona Clayton

For Xernona Clayton, standing over Martin Luther King Jr.’s body as it lay in a casket inside Spelman College’s Sisters Chapel, the feeling was unreal. Looking at her friend, she noticed a “big blob on his right cheek. Red like the red clay of Georgia. It was pretty unsightly.” Her mind flashed back to just three months earlier when she planned a rousing surprise party for King to celebrate his 39th birthday. She thought about how exhausted she was after trudging, without a cent to her name, to a local dress shop to secure dresses for Coretta Scott King to wear at her husband’s funeral. But Clayton, the first Black woman in the South to host their own daily TV show, was always the King whisperer. The person the King family and the Atlanta civil rights community looked to for guidance, calm and protection. So she asked the mortician to do something about the red blob, but he refused, saying that was the best he could do. Clayton went to Mama King, who was dark-skinned, and the wife of Harry Belafonte, who was white, and took their facial powders. “I mixed up a little roux... and we put his handkerchief around Martin’s neck, and I proceeded to tone this down with the powder I mixed up,” Clayton said. “It blended more evenly with the rest of his face and made such a difference. Coretta smiled.” In this 2008 interview with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Clayton candidly talked about those days immediately after the April 4, 1968 assassination of King. Clayton’s conversation was part of an oral history project marking the then 40th anniversary of King’s death. King III was one of 13 people that The AJC sat down with to record their stories and shed light on the life and death of the civil rights leader. We are re-releasing these interviews as a 13-part podcast [https://www.ajc.com/news/atlanta-news/voices-of-king-podcast-debuts-with-journalist-earl-caldwell/BKJ5OH2ZEBA4FPLZSMDHHYE2UU/] hosted by Multimedia Journalist Ryon Horne. Along with Clayton, Martin Luther King III, Kathryn Johnson, Tyrone Brooks, Earl Caldwell, Andrew Young, Xernona Clayton and Bernice King, and those who have left us — including Billy Kyle, Juanita Abernathy, Ralph David Abernathy III, the Rev. Joseph Lowery and Congressman John Lewis — each gives us a glimpse, through their relationships with King, inside the making of history. Each episode will be made available through the Unapologetically ATL newsletter [https://www.ajc.com/unapologetically-atl/], but you can also subscribe to “The Voices of King” on Spotify [https://open.spotify.com/show/05GEf1rRDGaSOjqcUHJjlx], Apple Podcasts [https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-voices-of-king/id1606036553], Google Podcasts [https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5tZWdhcGhvbmUuZm0vQ01HQTY0MjUyMTAzMjU], Amazon Music, [https://music.amazon.com/] Stitcher [https://www.stitcher.com/show/the-voices-of-king] or wherever you get your podcasts so you never miss an episode. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices [https://megaphone.fm/adchoices]

Ep. 11: Martin Luther King, III

Martin Luther King III had to grow up fast. Maybe too fast. He was 10 years old when his father, Martin Luther King Jr., was murdered on April 4, 1968. At such a young age, the eldest son of the civil rights icon was forced to break away from his shy and inward personality to take on the role of the man of the house. In this 2008 interview with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, King III gave insight into the King household after the tragic death of the family patriarch. Their family was, according to King III, no different from any other American family with the now-immediate challenges of being a one-parent home. Sibling rivalries. Teenage mischief. But perhaps more intriguing is the younger King’s description of who Martin Luther King Jr. was as a father—away from the marches and pulpit. From King’s account, his father was a great pool player, a basketball player and just an all-around fun dad. King IIII’s conversation was part of an oral history project marking the then 40th anniversary of King’s death. King III was one of 13 people that The AJC sat down with to record their stories and shed light on the life and death of the civil rights leader. We are re-releasing these interviews as a 13-part podcast [https://www.ajc.com/news/atlanta-news/voices-of-king-podcast-debuts-with-journalist-earl-caldwell/BKJ5OH2ZEBA4FPLZSMDHHYE2UU/] hosted by Multimedia Journalist Ryon Horne. Along with King III, Kathryn Johnson, Tyrone Brooks, Earl Caldwell, Andrew Young, Xernona Clayton and Bernice King, and those who have left us — including Billy Kyle, Juanita Abernathy, Ralph David Abernathy III, the Rev. Joseph Lowery and Congressman John Lewis — each gives us a glimpse, through their relationships with King, inside the making of history. Each episode will be made available through the Unapologetically ATL newsletter [https://www.ajc.com/unapologetically-atl/], but you can also subscribe to “The Voices of King” on Spotify [https://open.spotify.com/show/05GEf1rRDGaSOjqcUHJjlx], Apple Podcasts [https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-voices-of-king/id1606036553], Google Podcasts [https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5tZWdhcGhvbmUuZm0vQ01HQTY0MjUyMTAzMjU], Amazon Music, [https://music.amazon.com/] Stitcher [https://www.stitcher.com/show/the-voices-of-king] or wherever you get your podcasts so you never miss an episode. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices [https://megaphone.fm/adchoices]

Ep. 10: Kathryn Johnson

When the whole world wanted the story, it was up to Kathryn Johnson to tell them. “How was Coretta?” “When is the funeral?” “Who has visited the family?” In the hours and days following the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., Johnson, a veteran reporter for the Associated Press, was the only journalist allowed in the home of Coretta Scott King to tell the family’s story. That was the bond and trust she had established with the King family through her coverage of the Civil Rights Movement and her relationship with Coretta Scott King. The legendary reporter, who died in 2019, talked to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution in 2008 about those hours and days and the history that was unfolding before her. When she arrived at the King house, two reporters were chatting with a police officer on the porch. The front door opened, and Johnson could see Coretta Scott King in a pink nightgown, standing in the hall. “She spotted me and said, ‘Let Kathryn in,’” she recalled. Johnson was at the home every day, giving the AP several scoops. Part of a project marking the then 40th anniversary of King’s death, Johnson was one of 13 people that The AJC sat down with to record their stories and shed light on the life and death of the civil rights leader. We are re-releasing these interviews as a 13-part podcast [https://www.ajc.com/news/atlanta-news/voices-of-king-podcast-debuts-with-journalist-earl-caldwell/BKJ5OH2ZEBA4FPLZSMDHHYE2UU/] hosted by Multimedia Journalist Ryon Horne. Along with Johnson, Tyrone Brooks, Earl Caldwell, Andrew Young, Martin Luther King III, Xernona Clayton and Bernice King, and those who have left us — including Billy Kyle, Juanita Abernathy, Ralph David Abernathy III, the Rev. Joseph Lowery and Congressman John Lewis — each gives us a glimpse, through their relationships with King, inside the making of history. Each episode will be made available through the Unapologetically ATL newsletter [https://www.ajc.com/unapologetically-atl/], but you can also subscribe to “The Voices of King” on Spotify [https://open.spotify.com/show/05GEf1rRDGaSOjqcUHJjlx], Apple Podcasts [https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-voices-of-king/id1606036553], Google Podcasts [https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5tZWdhcGhvbmUuZm0vQ01HQTY0MjUyMTAzMjU], Amazon Music, [https://music.amazon.com/] Stitcher [https://www.stitcher.com/show/the-voices-of-king] or wherever you get your podcasts so you never miss an episode. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices [https://megaphone.fm/adchoices]

Ep. 9: Christine King Farris

Christine King Farris couldn’t force herself to get off the plane. Who could blame her really? The older sister of Martin Luther King Jr. had rushed to Memphis to retrieve the body of her brother after he had been gunned down a day earlier on April 4, 1968. She didn’t want to step foot on the soil where her brother was murdered. In a gripping 2008 interview with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Farris, the last living King sibling, sat down to talk about the last days of her brother and the immediate impact that his death had on the family. Part of a project marking the then 40th anniversary of King’s death, Farris was one of 13 people that The AJC sat down with to record their stories and shed light on the life and death of the civil rights leader. We are re-releasing these interviews as a 13-part podcast [https://www.ajc.com/news/atlanta-news/voices-of-king-podcast-debuts-with-journalist-earl-caldwell/BKJ5OH2ZEBA4FPLZSMDHHYE2UU/] hosted by Multimedia Journalist Ryon Horne. Along with Farris, Tyrone Brooks, Earl Caldwell, Andrew Young, Martin Luther King III, Xernona Clayton and Bernice King, and those who have left us — including Billy Kyle, Juanita Abernathy, Ralph David Abernathy III, the Rev. Joseph Lowery, Congressman John Lewis, Kathryn Johnson — each gives us a glimpse, through their relationships with King, inside the making of history. Each episode will be made available through the Unapologetically ATL newsletter [https://www.ajc.com/unapologetically-atl/], but you can also subscribe to “The Voices of King” on Spotify [https://open.spotify.com/show/05GEf1rRDGaSOjqcUHJjlx], Apple Podcasts [https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-voices-of-king/id1606036553], Google Podcasts [https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5tZWdhcGhvbmUuZm0vQ01HQTY0MjUyMTAzMjU], Amazon Music, [https://music.amazon.com/] Stitcher [https://www.stitcher.com/show/the-voices-of-king] or wherever you get your podcasts so you never miss an episode. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices [https://megaphone.fm/adchoices]