Growing Up King by Dexter Scott King, Ralph Wiley

level.
     There’s a photo of me talking to Mother in her office, taken around ’71. Marvin Gaye is there visiting with her. I can still
     hear his lyrics from his immortal album, done in the wake of my father’s death:
    Mother, mother, there’s far too many of you crying
    Brother, brother, there’s far too many of you dying
    Though immersed in her work, Mother made time for us. She was still our mother, a working mom, and understood as a single
     parent the importance of playing both roles, sensitive to what Martin had said to her about wishing he had two moms. When
     she was gone, she made sure we had Uncle Andy, Aunt Jean, Big Mama, Uncle A.D., Aunt Naomi, Aunt Christine, Uncle Isaac, Aunt
     Fran Lucas, the late Aunt Fran Thomas, and my mother’s sister, Aunt Edythe. And then there was the multifaceted Mr. Horton,
     who helped in many ways over time.
    Martin and I got minibikes. Motorized mopeds. Mine was home-rigged and a hand-me-down from Martin. My brother got a Honda
     70. He led. I followed in his footsteps. Mr. Horton helped us with the engines if they acted up. He ran errands, commiserated
     over skinned knees. He was quiet and retiring, yet always there for us. He had us work around the house. Chores. He managed
     the process. Mr. Horton managed the grounds, and managed us too, in a way, and did it very well. Mother had to be out of town
     often. So Mr. Horton would pick us up, drop us off, listen to us, do for us. Definitely after my father died, Mr. Horton was
     instrumental in dealing with the day-to-day.
    However, before any kind of normal routine could be established, tragedy struck again.

C HAPTER 5

A Question of Faith
    T hat’s one small step for man… one giant leap for mankind.”
    Alfred Daniel King, Sr., Daddy’s younger brother, died a little more than a year after my father was assassinated. Uncle A.D.
     drowned in his backyard swimming pool on July 21, 1969, nine days before his thirty-ninth birthday, less than forty-eight
     hours after Neil Armstrong walked on the moon, a week removed from the Ted Kennedy/Mary Jo Kopechne Chappaquiddick incident.
    Uncle A.D. had taken my siblings and me to Jamaica for that July weekend, and two of his own five children. We’d all looked
     forward to it. I remember the islanders’ melodious voices sounding like Geoffrey Holder—“Welcome to Jamaica, your new i-land
     home”—and Uncle A.D., saying, “Watch out for the jellyfish, now!” He went with us but he went back to the mainland early,
     to preach a sermon that Sunday. Monday, the next day, was his oldest son Al’s seventeenth birthday. It was Al who found Uncle
     A.D. that Monday morning, floating in the backyard pool.
    Uncle A.D. was a Baptist minister too. He came to co-pastor at Ebenezer and help my grandfather after Daddy was killed.
    My cousin Alveda, eldest of his and Aunt Naomi’s five children, didn’t agree with the accidental drowning report. Uncle A.D.
     had been very vocal about his questions regarding my father’s death. My sisters and brother and I didn’t give it much thought.
     When I heard the name “James Earl Ray” I averted my eyes; consciously or not, my sensory equipment shut down. Not Uncle A.D.’s.
    “There’s more to this than meets the eye, and one day God will judge it all,” Uncle A.D. said anytime the subject of my father’s
     murder was broached. We had gotten to the point where we didn’t broach it out loud. But we looked forward to Jamaica. Uncle
     A.D. had taught Alveda and the rest of his children—Al, Derek, Darlene, and Vernon—how to swim. He’d been on the swim team
     as a young man at Morehouse College, in fact was the number-one-ranked swimmer on the team. My siblings and I leaned on Uncle
     A.D. Now he was gone too, prompting a disconnect between me and any adult males. What was the point in connecting with someone
     who was dying soon?
    We were still in Jamaica when we found out Uncle A.D. was dead. Aunt Naomi was with us. It was