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Publisher:
Warner Books |
Release
Date: January 2003 |
ISBN:
1586212001 |
Awards:
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Format
Reviewed: Audio Cassette - Abridged edition |
Buy
it at Amazon |
Read
an Excerpt |
Genre:
Nonfiction / Memoir |
Reviewer:
Brenda Weeaks |
Reviewer
Notes: Hardcopy
review |
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Growing
Up King
An Intimate
Memoir
By Dexter
Scott King, Ralph Wiley (Contributor)
How
do YOU judge a man, by where he came from or where he's going?
This
is something Dexter Scott King seeks the answer to, especially with
his parents' people. His father was civil rights leader Martin Luther
King Jr, and it's his people that years later did not want Dexter
as leader of the King Center, one of their reasons being his lack
of education. Dexter's feelings about it, however, were that they
didn't need the family of the man that had brought the King Center
to the height at which it now stands, and that those against Dexter's
leadership wanted to take control of the memorial and remove his
mother, as well as him.
Here
stood a man who had survived a past of lost loved ones. A man whose
childhood endured pain and suffering from those he didn't even know.
A childhood made strong by a father and mother who loved, taught,
and protected their children. After his father's death, Dexter became
a young man in need. He needed to find out who he was and why he
wasn't as much like his father as he wished. His answers lead to
undiagnosed health reasons and hidden emotions.
King
begins his memoir by telling readers about his childhood with his
father and mother up to and after his father's death. It is a sensitive,
poignant account. Readers will give way to emotions as the past
is relived and a great man's assassination is retold. Dexter also
talks about the famous people in his father's life who supported
the civil right cause. Many of those continue to support civil rights
and black education today.
Dexter
then goes into his life and schooling, after his father is killed.
As a man, he discovers why he failed to gain the knowledge in school
that his mother so wanted for him. He shares with readers his different
jobs and his love of music, and how he became the leader of King
Center, only to resign later in disappointment and heartache.
Dexter
Scott King reads the audio version of his intimate memoir. Although
his voice is a bit stilted, his words are nonetheless touching.
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