The AC Phoenix
January 2006
Page 15
NEW YORK-On Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, which is traditionaily the
iargest shopping day of the year, a Nov. 25 protest of “kiiier” video games was heid
in front of a video game store on 125th Street in Harlem’s shopping district.
Protesters—which inciuded concerned parents, members of independent
schoois, parenting organizations, members of the Hood Research of Detroit, Ml, and
local organizations such as the Nationai Association of Sociai Workers—charged
that such games promote messages that romanticize murder and mayhem to
chiidren.
“These games promote murder, drug use, vioience, biood and gore. These are
games that you have to kiii peopie in order to move to another ievel in the game,”
stressed Bob Law, chairperson of the New York State Locai Organizing Committee
of the Miiiions More Movement. “Our chailenge as a community and parents is to
heip our youth vision a new reaiity and not simpiy embrace the unreaiity the video
games are promoting as normal.”
The protesters aimed to convince shoppers not to purchase such video games.
“Prisons are being filled with our youth who are being influenced by these
games,” asserted Nathaniel Muhammad of the Learning Tree School of Queens. “As
an educator, 1 believe we have to start at an early age putting positive ideas and
thoughts in their young minds.
Writer and performance artist Camille Yarborough spoke on how killer video
games give youth a false sense of reality as they search for power due to the lack of
family togetherness.
“It is time for the Black family to stand up between these killer games and our chil
dren and say ‘no more’,” implored Ms. Yarborough, who went so far as to urge parents
to return the killer video games their children already own. “We must become more
actively involved with this pernicious evil that is being perpetrated on our young peo
ple,” insisted Cliff Fraser, chaimian of the Bronx Local Organizing Committee. “We
must not be quiet and indifferent and allow this to happen, for these are our children
and they are our future,” he added. “We must reach out to our young people.”
On Nov. 28, in a C-Span interview, Senator Joseph Lieberman (D-CT) announced
that he and Senator Hillary Clinton (D-NY) are proposing a bill before the Senate that
will address concerns that these violent games are affecting the moral fiber of America.
We’re proud to celebrate the birth of
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., a truly great
American whose vision and eloquence
continue to enrich our nation.
C & J
Live Bait and Tackle
Open 7 Days
6 am -10 pm
1716 MLK, Jr. Drive
Winston-Saiem, NC 27107
(across from Tuttle Lumber)
336.771.0061
Bernice and
Martin King
speak out
Friday against
their brother
Dexter's plan
to sell the
King Center
to the federal
government.
SIBLINGS FIGHT SALE
OF KING CENTER
DISPUTE MAY CLOUD PARK SERVICE DEAL
By ERNIE SUGGS
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
On the steps of the famed civil rights institution their mother founded, Martin
Luther King ill and his sister, Bernice King, said they opposed selling the Martin
Luther King Jr. Center to the federal government.
At a news conference Friday, the siblings also
criticized their brother, Dexter Scott King, for
beginning sales talks with the government after what
Martin King called an illegal takeover of the center's
board this year.
“Bernice and I stand to differ with those who
would sell our father's legacy and barter our
mother's vision, whether it is for 30 pieces of silver
or $30 million," he said. "To many, this issue may
seem a mere squabble among siblings. Instead, we
are facing a monumental moral and historical
decision regarding Martin Luther King Jr. and Coretta
Scott King and what their legacy means to this city,
this nation and the world."
Bernice King said the siblings had been unable to
reach agreement. "There have been conversations
with Dexter. We've had a lot of meetings. But it is difficult to work when one party
ceases to listen and keeps going with his plans."
Last week Isaac Farris, the center's new president, said the board was exploring
the prospect of selling the civil rights landmark to the National Park Service, which
runs the Martin Luther King Jr. National Historic Site across the street. The sale
would include several buildings at the Auburn Avenue complex and the civil rights
leader's birth home. Efforts to reach Farris on Friday were unsuccessful.
The news conference marked the first public airing of the dispute over the King
Center's future between Martin and Bernice King, who oppose the sale, and Dexter
and another sibling, Yolanda King, who favor it. Neither could be reached for com
ment. Their mother, Coretta Scott King, is in Florida, recuperating from a stroke in
August and unable to speak.
Bernice King said her mother realized the center might be sold eventually. “Prior
to my mother's stroke, Martin and I had a conversation with her," she said. “She felt
at some point, [the center] may in fact end up with the government, but she never
envisioned it in her lifetime."
On Friday, standing in the shadow of the King Center beneath a banner of their
parents heralding the upcoming King holiday, the two asked the government to
cease negotiations until the siblings reach agreement. Neither Dexter King nor
Yolanda King attended the news conference.
Bernice King said she and Martin King were willing to work with the government.
"For the record, let me be clear. We are not opposed to some sort of cooperative
agreement between the King Center and the federal government through the Park
Service," she said. "But we are opposed to the transfer of ownership of the center
to the government and/or any of its auspices."
Just months after her husband was assassinated in Memphis in 1968, Coretta
Scott King established the Martin Luther King Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social
Change in her basement. By 1981 she had raised enough money to build the $8
million Auburn Avenue facility, just steps away from King's birth home and the
Ebenezer Baptist Church where he preached.
“She knocked on doors, helped raise funds and did whatever needed to be done
to make sure the center was built," Bernice King said.
Coretta King chaired the center's board until she turned over the reins to Dexter
King in 1994. Board membership dwindled from dozens of national and community
leaders to a handful of family members. Conflicts between Dexter King and Martin
King over control began in August 2004, when the nine-member board voted Martin
King president and chairman. The board's "life members" were the civil rights
leader's family and former Atlanta Mayor Andrew Young.
Martin King said he received six votes, a majority. He continued as chairman until
earlier this year when his brother took over.
“Dexter found a technicality that the majority didn't really matter," Martin King
said. "He arbitrarily added eight additional members to the-board. The [original]
board did not participate in those selections. They were made by the chairman. That
is not a democracy." The new board subsequently voted to sell the center and
removed Martin King and Bernice King as its president and secretary. The two were
the only board members who voted not to sell. They said they might pursue legal
action to prevent the sale.
Saudia Muwwakkil, a spokeswoman for the National Historic Site, said the Park
Service "looks forward to learning what path the King Center intends now for its own
future."
As the news conference concluded, Bernice King said the family dispute had not
affected the siblings' feelings for each other. "I love my brother and sister. At the end
of the day, we are family," she said “We still love each other."