Martin Luther King III talks about his father, his name, history and hope

As one might expect, Martin Luther King III experiences what he describes as "myriad emotions" when he returns to Memphis, the city where his world-famous and world-changing father was felled by an assassin's bullet on a balcony of the Lorraine Motel in 1968.

“I remember April 4, 56 years ago, the Thursday night my dad was killed,” said King, who was 10 years old at the time. “But I also remember April 8, which was a Monday, the day that my mom took the three of us older children to Memphis to continue the work he was engaged in and lead a demonstration.”

"Mrs. King Leads Silent March in Memphis Tribute to Late Husband" stated the headline at the top of the front page of that day's edition of the evening newspaper, the Memphis Press-Scimitar.

The boldface type ran above a panoramic photograph of thousands of marchers — 14,000, according to the Press-Scimitar — crowding Main Street, with young Martin Luther King III in front, between his older sister, Yolanda, who was flanked by singer Harry Belafonte, and younger brother, Dexter, who was next to the children's mother, Coretta Scott King. She was dressed in black, and the boys wore suitcoats and ties.

"I'm not a big emotional crier," Martin Luther King III said in a Zoom interview Tuesday. "But this morning something triggered an emotion, and it's largely because of the sadness of where we are as a nation 56 years after my dad's passing."

He said America seems to be moving "backward" to a less progressive era of political incivility and anti-democratic tendencies.

"We need to look at ourselves and what we have done or have not done to move our society forward," he said. "We truly hope the nation, which is so divided, can find a true path rooted in peace and justice and equity."

A human rights champion like his father, King and his activist family — his wife, Arndrea Waters King, and daughter, Yolanda Renee King — will be in Memphis on Thursday to take part in an annual event: the free public celebration of the life and legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. that is held each April 4 at the National Civil Rights Museum.

This year's edition of the event is titled "Remembering MLK: The Man. The Movement. The Moment." The commemoration is set to begin at 4:30 p.m. and end with a moment of silence at 6:05 p.m. — the time when Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was shot and killed outside his room at the Lorraine Motel, which was preserved in the construction of the civil rights museum, which opened in 1991.

Martin Luther King III will speak during the commemoration, and the King family for the first time will participate in the ceremonial placement of a new wreath on the balcony outside Room 306, where Dr. King was staying at the time of his assassination, after having traveled to Memphis to support the city's striking sanitation workers. The event also will feature music and performances by the museum's youth poetry and spoken word competition winners.

Arndrea King said daughter Yolanda, now 15, had visited the museum for the first time only a year ago, because "we wanted to go at a time when she was old enough to understand the significance." Yolanda, however, is hardly unaware of her grandfather's impact. Emerging as an activist herself, last week she addressed the United Nations General Assembly as the invited “youth speaker” on March 25, which the UN designates as "International Day of Remembrance of the Victims of Slavery and the Transatlantic Slave Trade."

Arndrea King said the National Civil Rights Museum is "very important," in large part because it preserves and illustrates the history of race relations in the United States.

“It’s not about collective guilt, it’s about collective responsibility," said Arndrea King, decrying legislative efforts in states such as Tennessee to suppress honest instruction about slavery and the civil rights struggle.

“The fact is, our daughter, who is Dr. King’s only grandchild, at almost 16 years old, has fewer rights now than she had on the day she was born," she said.

She said that laws and court decisions since Yolanda’s birth in 2008 have “decimated” voting rights, “struck down” affirmative action initiatives, and restricted “reproductive freedom” for women, in a regressive assault on individual and democratic rights “that has not happened since Reconstruction.”

Martin Luther King III is Dr. King's eldest son and the second of Dr. King's four children. The first-born child, Yolanda King, died at 51 in 2007. Dr. King's other son, Dexter King, died Jan. 22 at 62. The other surviving child is Bernice King, 60, a lawyer and minister.

King said his famous "Martin Luther King" name has been more a blessing than a burden, thanks to the encouragement of his mother, "liberated" by telling him to be his own man.

"If I had to wake up every day trying to fill the shoes of Martin Luther King Jr., I would would fail miserably," he said.

Nonetheless, King is former president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (his father was the founding president); and he and Arndrea King currently head up the Drum Major Institute, a group founded in 1961 to encourage the world to realize "Dr. King’s vision of a world free of racism, poverty and violence," according to the organization's website.

“We’re doing everything we can to see that democracy prevails,” he said, noting that the Drum Major Institute ― intended for people who want to be “drum majors for peace, justice and equity” ― has awarded numerous grants supporting voter-registration efforts.

Said King: “The candidacy of Mr. Trump is not just divisive. He’s told us he want to be a dictator, and there’s an old saying: 'When someone tells you who they are, you need to listen to them.'"

For more information, visit civilrightsmuseum.org.

This article originally appeared on Memphis Commercial Appeal: Martin Luther King III talks about his father before death anniversary