MLK daughter Yolanda King dead at 51

ATLANTA - Yolanda Denise King, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s eldest
child who pursued her father's dream of racial harmony through acting and
motivational speaking, has died. She was 51.

King died late Tuesday 15th May in Santa Monica, Calif., said Steve Klein, a
spokesman for the King Center. The family did not know the cause of death
but that relatives think it might have been a heart problem, he said.

Born on Nov. 17, 1955, in Montgomery, Ala., King was just an infant when her
home was bombed during the turbulent civil rights era.

As an actress, she appeared in numerous films, including "Ghosts of
Mississippi," and even played Rosa Parks in the 1978 miniseries "King."

One of her father's close aides in the civil rights movement, the Rev.
Joseph Lowery, said Wednesday he was stunned and saddened by the news of
King's death.

"Yolanda was lovely. She wore the mantle of princess, and she wore it with
dignity and charm," Lowery said. "She was a warm and gentle person and was
thoroughly committed to the movement and found her own means of expressing
that commitment through drama."

King-an actor, speaker and producer-was the founder and head of Higher
Ground Productions, billed as a "gateway for inner peace, unity and global
transformation." On her company's Web site, King described her mission as
encouraging personal growth and positive social change.

King also was an author and held memberships in the Southern Christian
Leadership Conference-which her father co-founded in 1957-and the National
Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Her death comes more than
a year after the death of her mother, Coretta Scott King.

She was the most visible and outspoken among the Kings' four children during
this year's Martin Luther King Day in January, the first since her mother's
death. At her father's former Atlanta church, Ebenezer Baptist, she
performed a series of solo skits that told stories including a girl's first
ride on a desegregated bus and a college student's recollection of the 1963
desegregation of Birmingham, Ala.

She also urged the audience to be a force for peace and love, and to use the
King holiday each year to ask tough questions about their own beliefs on
prejudice.

"We must keep reaching across the table and, in the tradition of Martin
Luther King Jr. and Coretta Scott King, feed each other," King said.

When asked then by The Associated Press how she was dealing with the loss of
her mother, King responded: "I connected with her spirit so strongly. I am
in direct contact with her spirit, and that has given me so much peace and
so much strength."

The flag at The King Center, which King's mother founded in 1968 and where
she was a board member, was lowered to half-staff on Wednesday.

Survivors include her sister, the Rev. Bernice A. King and brothers Martin
Luther King III and Dexter Scott King.

Arrangements were to be announced later, the family said in a statement.