Before his death, Dexter King reconciled with his sister Bernice King 

In the end, there was peace.

For years, the children of Martin Luther King Jr. faced unimaginable tragedy, turmoil and conflict. Some brought on from the outside world, and some self-inflicted.

The road to reconciliation began eight years ago and culminated Jan. 22 when Dexter King, 62, died of prostate cancer at his home in Malibu. 

Dexter’s death leaves only two of MLK Jr.’s children still living — Martin III and Bernice. Yolanda, the eldest, died in 2007, less than 16 months after the death of her mother, Coretta Scott King.

READ MORE: The King Center announces celebration of life for Dexter Scott King

The family’s journey from conflict to conflict resolution shines as a beacon for King’s lifelong teachings of nonviolence and reconciliation.

“He is my brother. We are tied. We are blood. We are family. Never mind what we may have said to each other,” Bernice said in an interview three days after her brother’s death. “I’m so grateful that God gave me time with my brother. Whatever happened in the past is like it never happened. Him looking at me and saying: ‘I’m proud of you, and I’m sorry.’ The number of times he said: ‘I love you.’ I don’t feel depleted. I don’t feel God cheated me. I’m just so grateful.”

Last March Leah Weber King, Dexter’s wife, told Bernice her brother had cancer, a fight he had been waging privately for the past three years.

“Dexter and I hadn’t spoken since 2019 until last March,” Bernice said. “The one thing he wanted, and I wanted, was reconciliation. God worked it out.” 

Bernice went to California to visit Dexter in June and in November. 

“The relationship between Bernice and Dexter over the past 10 months has been the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen,” said Leah in an exclusive interview. “What I witnessed with the two of them was profound for both of them. They healed each other. “He told Bernice: ‘I know I have a heavy hand. But I want to do better.’ He really grew through their conversations. It was a real transformation.”

Until the past eight years, conflicts between the siblings kept ending up in court — in lawsuits and countersuits — often making national news. Sometimes it was Martin and Bernice against Dexter. Other times, it was Martin and Dexter against Bernice.

“Most people saw the greatest conflict between me and Dexter — an Alpha male and an Alpha female,” Bernice said.

There were lawsuits about the distribution of proceeds from King Inc., the entity that owns the King copyright and protects its assets. There were lawsuits between the siblings over control of the King Center, the nonprofit entity that promotes King’s legacy. And from 2014 to 2016, the siblings were involved in a tug-of-war over the possible sale of King’s Nobel Peace Prize medal and his personal diary.

On Jan. 13, 2015, Dexter appeared in Fulton County Court to confirm King Inc.’s ownership of the peace medal and the Bible. That’s when Dexter agreed to meet with me later that afternoon so we could talk on background about what the family was going through. I received permission from Leah last week to share Dexter’s thoughts at the time.

Dexter explained his reluctance to speak with the press.

“I have been concerned, when I have traditionally done interviews, about not being given a fair shake,” Dexter said. “I get disenchanted with the whole process. I would appreciate the opportunity for things to be put in context. People pass judgment on my family more times than not. All of our lives have been in the public eye — not necessarily by choice, but by inheritance.”

At the time I asked Dexter whether there could be a grand resolution to the conflicts between him and his siblings.

“I’m all ears. It is inherently challenging when you have three distinct personalities to get everyone on the same page – just because we have the same parents,” Dexter said. “Not that I’m not hopeful. The reason we were in court in the first place. My mother was the glue. These feelings were there. They were kept in check because of my mother’s presence.”

Dexter, as CEO of King Inc., was the grand protector of the family’s ownership of the King legacy.

When Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated, he left little in material assets to his family. Any money he received for his work — including the Nobel Peace Prize money — he invested in the movement.

But the main items of value MLK left his family were his writings and speeches, all of which he had copywritten.

“My father knew what should be for the family, what should be copywritten, and what should be for the movement,” Dexter said in 2015. “We are fighting over the possession of the property.”

At the end of our two-hour visit at the Grill in the Ritz Carlton Atlanta, Leah pulled me aside and said her great wish was that the family could gather around the same table for Christmas and be a family. We shared a mutual hope for a grand reconciliation.

It was later in 2015 when Leah convinced Dexter they needed to buy a home in Atlanta.

“If we are going to do this, we have to be close to each other. We have to have a place in Atlanta,” she told him. “I was really excited to come to Atlanta. That started the healing and mending of their relationships in real ways.”

Dexter and Leah invited family and friends to their Atlanta home for a New Year’s Eve celebration to welcome 2016, and they came. 

Also, in 2016, former President Jimmy Carter became one of the mediators to work through issues between the siblings, including the ownership of the Nobel Peace Prize and King’s Bible.

“President Carter did a phenomenal job in what he did for us at that time,” said Martin III, reflecting back on his relationship with his siblings. “I think it helped us. In my view, it’s never been that we haven’t been a family. It’s a family that had differences. Ultimately, emotions bring you into court. The best thing was to get out of court and to always stay talking.”

Martin III is still processing the loss of his brother, saying he didn’t realize the severity of Dexter’s illness.

“It is difficult. It’s now just two of us,” he said of him and Bernice. “It is a life-changing moment. I’m still reflecting.”

But Martin III did give credit to Leah for helping Dexter become closer to the family. “They were a very special couple,” he said. “I’m grateful she was there for him.”

Dexter and Leah met in 2001 when she had a coffee and espresso bar in New Orleans. She found out Dexter was coming to town to promote his autobiography “Growing up King: An Intimate Memoir.” She was able to arrange a reading at her coffee shop.

“We started dating at that point,” she said. “There was a lot of mystery and mystique there.”

They eventually married in July 2013, one month before the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington. That’s when I met Leah for the first time, forming an immediate friendship. Over the years, she and I shared a desire for the family to resolve its differences.

After they bought their home in Atlanta, Dexter and Leah agreed to spend half a year here, rotating three months in Malibu and three months in Atlanta. 

But their Atlanta visits came to an end during the pandemic, and Dexter was reluctant to travel, partly due to his illness. The good news is that Leah will be moving to Atlanta full-time.

For nearly three years, Leah kept Dexter’s cancer diagnosis a secret from everyone, including her family.

“I’ve been living this journey with him,” Leah said in an interview in their Atlanta home three days after his death. “The outpouring of love and support has been fueling me. I was kind of bracing myself to the negativity he and I have been used to. People are rethinking his role.”

Leah also explained Dexter’s preference to live in Malibu over Atlanta.

“He loved Malibu because he was incognito there. He just loved being invisible. He felt free,” Leah said. “Here, he was self-conscious. Atlanta didn’t feel good to him. I don’t think he ever let go of the hurt he felt.”

Former Atlanta Mayor Andrew Young, who worked alongside King during the Civil Rights movement, said the children also felt the pain of losing their father. He became Uncle Andy, and he provided a sympathetic ear to each of them.

“I stopped trying to pull them together,” said Young, who understood that if you don’t protect the copyright, you lose it. “I never tried to get them to agree on anything. Constantly there were situations that required the children to have to make grown up decisions.”

So, Dexter’s reconciliation with Bernice was a real turning point. And Bernice’s respect and appreciation for Dexter grew this past year as she recognized they had both misunderstood each other.

“To me, Dexter had the most strategic mind in this world,” Bernice said. “He knew he had to download, and he had to prepare me for things. We talked about every two days. I feel a responsibility to bring to pass what he was trying to do with the King Center. That’s his legacy. He deserves the legacy.”

Finally, she and the King Center can hold up their own family’s story.

“I think people held us to a standard that was unfair ­— because our father was the leader of a nonviolent movement, that we shouldn’t have conflict,” Bernice said. “Maybe this is God’s way of showing us how nonviolence works. It has brought credibility to our efforts to reconcile and resolve conflict.”

Note to readers:

My relationship with the King family began in 1966 when Yolanda and I became best friends, giving me an intimate perspective of the whole family. I personally have felt the ups and downs of the various conflicts between the siblings. Yet I was always able to maintain a bond with Martin III, Dexter, Bernice, and now, Leah. For years, I have been wanting to write the reconciliation story. It just makes me sad I’m writing it now, after Dexter is no longer with us.