Dexter King to siblings: Turn over inventory of mother’s effects

The squabble among the children of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Coretta Scott King got more pitched Friday afternoon when a lawyer for one of the siblings filed documents accusing his sister of “misrepresentations” in court.

The motion for an amended temporary restraining order, filed on behalf of Dexter King’s corporation, claims the Rev. Bernice King — she is Dexter’s younger sister, and the administrator of their deceased mother’s estate — knows more about their parents’ personal effects than she has she claimed. The corporation, King Inc., wants the items for a book about the slain civil-rights leader’s wife. Mrs. King died in January 2006.

The amended temporary restraining order, filed in Fulton Superior Court, asks that Bernice King produce an inventory of the personal effects by 5 p.m. Monday.

“It was clear [in an earlier court filing] that she said there was no inventory,” said Nicole Wade, representing King Inc. “It’s clear that there was.”

The amended motion contains affidavits from archivists and others who said they were hired to catalog the letters, documents, photographs and other items in Coretta Scott King’s home. Mrs. King, 78, died in January 2006.

The archivists worked with Yolanda King, the oldest of the Kings’ four children and the executor of Mrs. King’s estate. While going through her mother’s effects, Yolanda King discovered a cache of letters and photos. Court papers called the correspondence “intimate.”

Yolanda King died in May 2007, and Bernice King became administrator.

A year later, Dexter King negotiated a $1.4 million contract with the Penguin Group to publish “The Autobiography of Coretta Scott King,” which would draw in part from the effects discovered in Mrs. King’s home. But Bernice and sibling Martin Luther King III refused to give him the items, claiming their mother wouldn’t approve of the co-author of the proposed book. They also said Dexter went behind their backs with the book deal.

Attorneys for King Inc. had already asked Fulton Superior Court for a temporary restraining order forcing Bernice King to hand over the papers. The amended request accuses her of “continuing to conceal the inventories and the location of all items that were in Mrs. King’s possession at the time of her death.”

Lawyer Jock Smith, representing Bernice and Martin III, expressed surprise at the latest development.

“Well, they [King Inc.} have got their nerve,” he said. “…These documents are the property of Coretta Scott King.”