burnet44
05-17-2007, 02:03 PM
Martin Luther King Jr.’s daughter dies at age 51
ATLANTA
Yolanda King, the firstborn child of the first family of the civil rights movement, who honored that legacy through acting and advocacy, died late Tuesday. She was 51.
The daughter of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and Coretta Scott King died in Santa Monica, Calif. Family members did not know the cause of death, but suspect it might have been a heart problem.
“This is just the last thing and the last person that we expected this to happen to,” said Issac Newton Farris, the Kings’ cousin and CEO of the King Center. “At least with my aunt (Coretta Scott King) we had some warning. Yolanda, as far as we knew, was healthy and certainly happy.”
Former Mayor Andrew Young, a lieutenant of her father’s who has remained close to the family, said King was going to her brother Dexter’s home when she collapsed in the doorway. Farris said she died near Dexter King but would not elaborate.
ATLANTA
Yolanda King, the firstborn child of the first family of the civil rights movement, who honored that legacy through acting and advocacy, died late Tuesday. She was 51.
The daughter of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and Coretta Scott King died in Santa Monica, Calif. Family members did not know the cause of death, but suspect it might have been a heart problem.
“This is just the last thing and the last person that we expected this to happen to,” said Issac Newton Farris, the Kings’ cousin and CEO of the King Center. “At least with my aunt (Coretta Scott King) we had some warning. Yolanda, as far as we knew, was healthy and certainly happy.”
Former Mayor Andrew Young, a lieutenant of her father’s who has remained close to the family, said King was going to her brother Dexter’s home when she collapsed in the doorway. Farris said she died near Dexter King but would not elaborate.