Growing Up King: An Intimate Memoir
by
Dexter Scott King

But at the kitchen table in the house in Montgomery, he had an epiphany; he said all the fear left him, and he gave himself and his Cause over to the hand and grace of God.

It wasn’t until the bombings in Montgomery on January 30, 1956, that it dawned on him: it wasn’t just him but also his family who were involved in his Cause. Yet only he had the epiphany. p. 16

We had no idea of the momentous nature of Daddy’s work. p. 23

We understood our parents were doing good work. Sometimes we’d be teased, which affected Yoki more because she was older and more aware and was connected to my father. When teased about our father going to jail, Yoki would tilt her head upward and say, “Yes, he did, but to help poor people.” p. 25

How could they be? These were the children of the generation of African Americans who had had their best hope let out of them like the air out of a pricked balloon, with the assassination of Daddy and other people who seemed to be just trying to help them. This was the end result of all that.

Of course, I couldn’t quite put it together like that back then, what was coming, in the form of this new hip-hop culture and sensibility. p. 100

Clearly, “not qualified” was their emotional response, given matter-of-factly, tossed off like science — science of spin. Attacking Maynard [Jackson, the first black mayor of Atlanta, Georgia] was emotional, self-serving, not supportable by fact, primal, and racially charged. All that stuff that would usually be ascribed to black folks. Pot calling the kettle black. What disqualifies Maynard?

“What? … Well, he just isn’t,” they would insist.

I pointed to the skin on my own hand. “Is this what disqualifies him?” p. 104