In their current court battle with their sister, Dexter King and Martin Luther King III claim that they urgently need to sell their father’s Nobel Peace Prize and Bible.
It’s difficult to know why that is, because neither Dexter, Martin III nor Bernice King will comment publicly, and much of their finances are private and shielded from public view. But a review of available tax documents, court papers and real estate records provides some clues to the siblings’ assets.
Those records show that Dexter King has received by far the greatest sums from the nonprofit King Center for Nonviolent Social Change: about $3 million in salary and benefits since 1996. King III received considerably less during that time, and there’s no record of any payments by the center to Bernice King. Dexter also enjoyed a seven-figure payday from his commission on the sale of Martin Luther King Jr.’s papers.
“Critics will say you can’t treat Dr. King like an American treasure that belongs to everyone, then also treat him like Google stock that belongs to the family,” said John Blake, a former AJC reporter and the author of “Children of the Movement.”
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