Rev. King’s Son to Lead Civil Rights Group

SAN FRANCISCO — The California-based effort to dismantle affirmative action in the United States inspired a new opponent with a familiar-sounding name Saturday--Martin Luther King III.

The elder son of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.--who, at 39, has reached the age at which his father was assassinated in 1968--came to California to announce that he will step forward to lead a new national civil rights organization. It is the first nationwide effort he has undertaken.

Speaking next door to a memorial to his father, King said here Saturday that he is reacting partly out of anger at the sponsors of Proposition 209, who indicated last week that they will continue to use his father’s words and vision to promote their newly expanded effort to end affirmative action nationally.

But he also said he is inspired by his father’s unfinished work, as demonstrated to him by the debate about whether affirmative action is still necessary or appropriate.

“It isn’t finished,” King said. “Thirty years ago, civil rights was about getting the right to vote and getting fair housing. In the ‘90s, it’s about getting decent-paying jobs and competing in corporate America.”

King, the second of four children born to the civil rights leader and his wife, Coretta, has already dedicated much of his life to public service and civil rights.

He worked with his younger brother, Dexter, at the King Center in Atlanta, a think tank and ecumenical project for civil rights.

He also served for seven years as an elected supervisor in Georgia’s Fulton County. Today, he helps run Leadership 2000, a training program for political and corporate officials.

In an interview, King said he expects the demands of his new organization--Americans United for Affirmative Action--will take much of his time. He also said his role as a chief spokesman in the highly charged political battlegrounds of affirmative action is likely to raise his national profile.

King said his effort, which will represent a coalition of interests, will be based in Atlanta. Organizers said they had discussed the idea with groups such as the NAACP and concerned businesses.

Most details, however--such as funding, and which groups and businesses would be part of the coalition--were kept private, including whether the younger King would receive a salary.

King said the need for such a group became evident after the lopsided victory of Proposition 209 in California last November. That measure, which seeks to end race and gender as factors in government hiring, contracting, promotions and university admissions, has been stalled in federal court since shortly after its passage.

The battle over Proposition 209 “was like a football game,” he said. “The team that was better organized won.”

Several other states and some lawmakers in Congress are already planning to offer similar legislation or ballot measures this year.

Proposition 209 sponsors downplayed the effect of the new civil rights organization Saturday.

“I think they have a really hard sell,” said Jennifer Nelson, spokeswoman for California’s Proposition 209 and the new national effort. “We’ve already been up against really big special-interest groups that have defended racial preferences with everything they have.”

Last week, the former chairman of California’s Proposition 209 campaign, Ward Connerly, said he will head a new foundation aimed at promoting those efforts.

Connerly reignited a controversy from last fall’s campaign by holding up Martin Luther King Jr.’s vision of a colorblind society as the goal of his push to end most affirmative action programs. The connection was underscored by launching the new foundation last Wednesday, the birth date of Martin Luther King Jr., which is celebrated as a national holiday Monday.

“I will not run from the right to use Dr. King’s words,” said Connerly. “He belongs to all of us.”

But King said at his news conference that his father was a strong proponent of affirmative action as a means to correct social inequities.

As a result, he said, Connerly’s use of a single phrase of his father’s--in which he described “a nation where [people] will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character”--is a distortion of King’s vision.

“I am certain my father would agree that the struggle to insure equal opportunity for all Americans is far from over,” King said. “Our country is currently embroiled in a backlash against hard-won gains made during the civil rights movement--namely, affirmative action.”