Ralph David Abernathy IV says his family’s legacy has come up only once in the classroom. Four years ago, his seventh-grade history teacher described Abernathy’s grandfather as the best friend and right-hand man of Martin Luther King Jr.
Yes, Abernathy is a campus celebrity at Westminster -- only what you would expect for a football star on a state-ranked high school team. “I don’t get a whole lot of questions,’’ Abernathy said about the other stuff that lends him fame, “but people are interested to know how we’re related, what it’s like. They’ll say, ‘Are you related to the Ralph David Abernathy?’ ”
On Friday night at Marist, where Westminster had to hold its home game because of flooding on its own campus, the grandson of the late civil-rights leader scored on a 48-yard pass and 15-yard run and blocked a kick in a 29-6 victory over Avondale.
In the crowd were Abernathy’s parents, each wearing jerseys with their son’s No. 6 and the name “Abernathy” on the back. Ralph David III’s jersey is green. Annette Abernathy’s is white.
“Where is he! Where is he! Where is he!” screamed Annette, the more vocal one, during a 9-yard run as her son wiggled between the tackles and almost got loose.
From a civil-rights perspective, the symbolism was not subtle. “I think about how far we’ve matured as a nation that black and whites can work and play together,’’ Abernathy III said. “It’s a statement of the power of the civil rights movement.’’
Abernathy’s widow, Juanita, was rare in her absence, attending a daughter’s wedding in Los Angeles. Abernathy III wished she been there to articulate it further.
The King family’s children applied to Westminster decades ago but were denied, according to Abernathy III, whose own siblings sought but failed to gain admission into Lovett. The youngest of Abernathy Sr.’s children attended Pace Academy in the mid-1980s.
Westminster, one of Atlanta’s most exclusive private schools, was desegregated in 1967 with a handful of African-Americans that included Lisa Borders, now the Atlanta City Council president and mayoral candidate, and Jannard Wade, Westminster’s first black football player and a star on the 1971 state championship team.
Abernathy IV knows the history.
‘’I think about it every day that I come here,’’ he said. “The sacrifices he [his grandfather] made so I could go to a place like this are a big thing. I’m proud to be his grandson.’’
Abernathy IV’s ambition is to be a professional football player. He runs track and has been clocked at 4.47 seconds over 40 yards, meaning speed will be no issue at the next level. Size could be. He’s 5 feet, 7 inches and 165 pounds.
“Ralph just needs a little seam, and once he gets into that second level, he’s tough to stop,’’ Westminster coach Gerry Romberg said.
Abernathy’s grandfather was no athlete, Abernathy III confirms, but Abernathy III was a running back and defensive back at Atlanta’s old Northside High from 1973-76. Annette Abernathy was a sprinter with an Olympic Trials qualifying time. “I think I’m fast,’’ said Abernathy IV, also called RAD4, or just Ralph. “I can run by people in the open field, and I have the ability to see the cut-back lane. I’m kind of small, but I like to think of myself as a north-south runner.’’
If not as an athlete, Abernathy says he still would like to be around sports, perhaps as a broadcaster or team physician. He plans to major in sports medicine in college.
He also talks of a responsibility to serve. He has volunteered at food banks, Boys & Girls Clubs, Atlanta Food Bank and Hosea Feed the Hungry.
“Our family has helped people,’’ Abernathy IV said. “I don’t feel it’s a requirement, but I enjoy doing it. I feel that I should because I was given so much. It’s been implanted in me. More things are expected of me because I have the name.”
Produced by Georgia High School Football Daily
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