Yolanda King, the firstborn child of the first family of the civil rights movement, who honored that legacy through acting and advocacy, has died. She was 51.
The daughter of the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. and Coretta Scott King died late on Tuesday in Santa Monica, California. Family members did not know the cause of death, but suspected it might have been a heart problem.
"This is just the last thing and the last person that we expected this to happen to," said Issac Newton Farris, the Kings' cousin and CEO of the King Center. "At least with my aunt [Coretta Scott King] we had some warning. Yolanda as far as we knew was healthy and certainly happy."
PHOTO: AP
Former mayor Andrew Young, a lieutenant of her father's who has remained close to the family, said King was going to her brother Dexter's home when she collapsed in the doorway. Farris said she died near Dexter King but would not elaborate.
Yolanda King, who lived in California, appeared in numerous films, including Ghosts of Mississippi and played Rosa Parks in the 1978 miniseries King. She also ran a production company.
"She was an actress, author, producer, advocate for peace and nonviolence, who was known and loved for her motivational and inspirational contributions to society," the King family said in a statement.
"She used her acting ability to dramatize the essence of the movement," said Representative John Lewis, who worked alongside King's father. "She could motivate and inspire and tell the story. I heard her recite `I Have A Dream' on several occasions. She made it real, made it part of her. I think her father would've been very, very proud of her."
Yolanda King's death came less than a year and a half after Coretta Scott King died, in January last year, after battling ovarian cancer and the effects of a stroke. Her struggle prompted her daughter to become a spokeswoman for the American Heart Association, raising awareness, especially among blacks, about stroke. A spokeswoman for the group said she last spoke on the organization's behalf on Saturday at a hospital in Langhorne, Pennsylvania.
Yolanda Denise King -- nicknamed Yoki by the family -- was born on Nov. 17, 1955, in Montgomery, Alabama, where her father was then preaching.
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