National

MLK Estate Drops Lawsuit Against King Center Over Licensing

Published

11 years ago

January 23, 2015

Dexter Scott King talks with attorney Nicole Wade during a hearing over who owns the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s 1964 Nobel Peace Prize medal and traveling Bible on Tuesday, Jan. 13, 2015 in Fulton County Superior Court in Atlanta. King’s estate, which is controlled by his sons, last year asked a judge to order King’s daughter to surrender the items. (AP Photo/Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Kent D. Johnson)

KATE BRUMBACK, Associated Press

ATLANTA (AP) — With the dismissal of one of two lawsuits that effectively pitted them against each other, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s children took a step Thursday toward resolving the issues that have divided them in recent years.

The Estate of Martin Luther King Jr. Inc. on Thursday voluntarily dismissed a lawsuit it had filed in August 2013 against the Martin Luther King Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change. Dexter Scott King is president and CEO of the estate and Martin Luther King III is chairman of the board. Their sister, the Rev. Bernice King, is CEO of the King Center.

The estate said in its suit that it had granted the King Center a nonexclusive, worldwide, royalty-free license to use King’s name, likeness and image and to publicly exhibit his writings and spoken words. But an audit done in April 2013 revealed that artifacts were being held in unsafe and unsecure conditions and that the terms of the licensing agreement had been violated, the suit said. The suit sought to have the estate’s property returned safely.

The case had been set for a bench trial next week.

Dexter said in an emailed statement Thursday that he instructed the estate’s lawyers to withdraw the lawsuit because it appeared his brother, Martin, had had a recent change of heart. The dismissal of the lawsuit is a show of good faith as the siblings move to resolve the issues at stake outside the courtroom, Dexter said.

“I understand my brother’s apprehension days before a public trial, and I share those concerns,” he said. “None of us want to see the legacy of my parents, or our dysfunction, out on public display.”

While the lawsuit has been dropped, lawyers for both sides said there is still work to be done to come to an agreement on the underlying issues.

“Where they are is they’re trying to find a resolution, and Dexter, in his capacity as the brother of Martin and Bernice, is trying to find a resolution that serves the interests of the estate because they’re all directors of the estate,” estate lawyer William Hill told The Associated Press.

The King Center is pleased that the estate has taken a first step in dropping the lawsuit, but “there remains much work to be done in terms of forging a long-lasting resolution between the estate and the center in terms of a licensing agreement between the two entities,” James Commons, a lawyer for the center, said in telephone interview.

The family had plans to meet Thursday evening to begin settlement discussions, Hill said.

A lawsuit filed against Bernice last year by the estate over ownership of King’s traveling Bible and 1964 Nobel Peace Prize is still pending and is set to go to trial next month. Dexter said he hopes those issues will also be resolved before a public trial.

The three surviving King children are the sole shareholders and directors of their father’s estate. At a board of directors meeting a year ago, the two brothers voted 2-1 against Bernice to sell their father’s Bible and peace prize medal.

Bernice has been outspoken in her opposition to selling the items. Speaking after a hearing in that case last week, Dexter declined to say whether they would be sold if the estate prevails in the ownership dispute.

King was assassinated in Memphis in April 1968. His wife, Coretta Scott King, died in 2006. Yolanda King, the Kings’ eldest child, died in 2007.

___

Follow Brumback at http://twitter.com/katebrumback

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Black Artists in America, Installation Three Wraps at the Dixon Gallery and Gardens

TRI-STATE DEFENDER — With 50+ paintings, sculptures and assemblages, the exhibit features artists like Varnette Honeywood from Los Angeles, whose pieces appeared in Bill Coby’s private collection (before they were auctioned off) and on “The Cosby Show.” Also included are works by Alonzo Davis, another Los Angeles artist who opened one of the first galleries there where Black Artists could exhibit.

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3 weeks ago

March 24, 2026

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By Candace A. Gray | Tri-State Defender

The tulips gleefully greet those who enter the gates at the Dixon Gallery & Gardens on an almost spring day. More than 650,000 bulbs of various hues are currently on display. And they are truly breathtaking.

Inside the gallery, and equally as breathtaking, is the “Black Artists in America, From the Bicentennial to September 11” exhibit, which runs through Sunday, March 29. This is the third installment of a three-part series that started years ago and illustrates part of the Black experience through visual arts in the 20th century.

“This story picks up where part two left off,’’ said Kevin Sharp, the Linda W. and S. Herbert Rhea director for the Dixon. “This era is when we really start to see the emergence of these important Black artists’ agency and freedom shine through. They start to say and express what they want to, and it was a really beautiful time.”

With 50+ paintings, sculptures and assemblages, the exhibit features artists like Varnette Honeywood from Los Angeles, whose pieces appeared in Bill Coby’s private collection (before they were auctioned off) and on “The Cosby Show.” Also included are works by Alonzo Davis, another Los Angeles artist who opened one of the first galleries there where Black Artists could exhibit.

“Though [Davis] was from LA, he actually lived in Memphis for a decade,” said Sharp. “He was a dean at Memphis College of Art, and later opened the first gallery in New York owned and operated by black curators.”

Another featured artist is former NFL player, Ernie Barnes. His work is distinctive. Where have you seen one of his most popular paintings, Sugar Shack? On the end scene and credits of the hit show “Good Times.” His piece Saturday Night, Durham, North Carolina, 1974 is in this collection.

Memphis native James Little’s “The War Baby: The Triptych” is among more than 50 works featured in “Black Artists in America, From the Bicentennial to September 11” at the Dixon Gallery & Gardens, the final installment of a three-part series highlighting the impact and evolution of Black artists through 2011.

The exhibit features other artists with Memphis ties, including abstract painter James Little, who was raised in a segregated Memphis and attended Memphis Academy of Art (before it was Memphis College of Art). He later moved to New York, became a teacher and an internationally acclaimed fixture in the art world in 2022 when he was named a Whitney Biennial selected artist at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York.

Other artists like Romare Bearden, who had a Southern experience but lived up North, were featured in all three installments.

“During this period of time, he was a major figure,” said Sharp. “He wrote one of the first books on the history of African American art during a time when there were more Black academics, art teachers, more Black everything!”

Speaking of Black educators, Sharp said the head curator behind this tri-part series and Dixon’s partner in the arts is Earnestine Jenkins, Ph.D., an art history professor at the University of Memphis, who also earned a Master of Arts degree from Memphis State University (now UofM). “We began working with Dr. Jenkins in 2018,” he said.

Sharp explained that it takes a team of curators, registrars, counterparts at other museums, and more, about three years to assemble an exhibit like this. It came together quite seamlessly, he added. Each room conjured up more jaw-dropping “wows” than the one before it. Each piece worked with the others to tell the story of Black people and their collective experience during this time period.

One of the last artists about whom Sharp shared information was Bettye Saar, who will turn 100 years old this year. She’s been working in Los Angeles for 80 years and is finally getting her due. Her medium is collages or assemblages, and an incredible work of hers is on display. She’s married to an artist and has two daughters, also artists.

The exhibit catalogue bears some of these artists’ stories, among other scholarly information.

The exhibit, presented by the Joe Orgill Family Fund for Exhibitions, is culturally and colorfully rich. It is a must see and admission to the Dixon is free.

Visit https://www.dixon.org/ to learn more.

Fun Facts: An original James Little design lives in the flooring of the basketball court at Tom Lee Park, and he makes and mixes his own paint colors.