Dishonouring Nobility

"You don't sell Bibles and you don't get but one Nobel Peace Prize."
"There are some items that you just don't put a price on."
Reverend Timothy McDonald, assistant pastor 1978-84, Ebenezer Baptist Church, Atlanta

"Our Father MUST be turning in his grave."

"While I love my brothers dearly, this latest decision by them is extremely troubling. Not only am I appalled and utterly ashamed, I am frankly disappointed that they would even entertain the thought of selling these precious items. It reveals a desperation beyond comprehension."

Bernice King, Atlanta, Georgia

Martin Luther King's children battling over estate

Bernice King speaks during a news conference at historic Ebenezer Baptist Church where her father Martin Luther King Jr. preached, Thursday, Feb. 6, 2014, in Atlanta. King is in a legal battle with her brothers over her father's Bible and Nobel Peace Prize medal. (AP Photo/John Bazemore)

Offspring of great men rarely realize greatness themselves. Rarely do they manage for that matter, to live up to the reputation of their famous parent. Such is most certainly the case with Martin Luther King's children. Who have coasted on their father's reputation since he became famous in his human rights campaigning, and have jealously guarded his position in history as their patrimony garnering them a living and more, since his death.

He was unique, and they are not, other than in their heritage. They have distinguished themselves only by their grasping greed. They have launched one lawsuit after another in efforts to enrich themselves through their father's legacy reputation. They disgrace their father's and their mother's memory in the battle against racial discrimination in the United States; their father's courageous determination to see his people free, a life-dedication that gained him world acclaim.

Now, it is their sister, Bernice King, whom Martin Luther King III and his younger brother Dexter Scott King have set about suing, asking a judge a year ago to order their sister to turn over their father's Nobel medal and his travelling Bible. It is their plan to sell these priceless historical artefacts to a private buyer. The two sons control the Estate of Martin Luther King Jr., Inc. Their sister deplores their wretched greed.

Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney will shortly decide to let the case go to trial, or alternately himself decide what the disposal should be. He had ordered Bernice to transfer the Bible and medal to the court's custody and having done so it appeared a year ago that the estate would come out the winner in the case. This represents the fifth lawsuit between the siblings within ten years.

Bernice spoke from the pulpit of her father's and grandfather's Ebenezer Baptist Church of the cherished status of the two items which her father held in such high personal esteem. That they would end up in the hands of a private collector to enable her brothers to enrich themselves is a travesty of immeasurable proportions.

Her brothers' actions are a stain on the family, and her older brother, named after his grandfather and his father has desecrated their names by their shameful avarice.