ATLANTA, Georgia-Dexter Scott King, the third child of the late, iconic Civil Rights leader the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., has died of pancreatic cancer at his home in California. He was 62 and died just eight days shy of his 63rd birthday and seven days after his father's 95th birthday on Jan 15, a national holiday.
King was just seven-years-old when his father was assassinated on a hotel balcony in Tennessee in 1968 while in town for a protest. He was an American civil and animal rights activist, attorney, and author. He is the author of Growing Up King: An Intimate Memoir.
His parents, Dr King and Coretta Scott King, who died in 2006, and an older sister, Yolanda King, who died of a heart attack in 2007, preceded him in death.
We ask for your prayers at this time for the entire King family," his sister, the Rev. Bernice King, who is the CEO of The King Center in Atlanta, Georgia, said in a statement.
King is also survived by his wife, Leah, whom he married in 2013, and his older brother, Martin Luther King III. His wife Leah said in a statement that he died "peacefully."
Funeral arrangements are pending.
King split his time between Atlanta, where he served as chairman of the King Center for Nonviolent Social Change, and Malibu, California.[10]
Dexter Scott King voiced his father's 34-year-old self in the 1999 educational film, Our Friend, Martin.[17][18] The film was nominated for an Emmy Award for Outstanding Animated Program. The handsome younger King also portrayed Martin Luther King Jr. in the 2002 American television movie The Rosa Parks
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