CIVIL RIGHTS VETERANS - May oust MLKIII

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Wednesday July 25 2:09 PM ET

Civil Rights Group Veterans May Oust MLK Son

By Paul Simao

ATLANTA (Reuters) - A powerful group of civil rights veterans has warned Martin Luther King III he could be ousted as leader of his slain father's Southern Christian Leadership Conference if he continues a pattern of ``inappropriate, obstinate behavior.''

In a June 25 letter leaked this week, SCLC board Chairman Claud Young told the eldest son of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. he had failed to set a clear agenda or raise enough money during his three years as president of the church-based civil rights group.

The 40-member SCLC board, which includes the Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth, Andrew Young and other prominent civil rights veterans, was so displeased with King it suspended the SCLC leader for one week last month.

Coretta Scott King, the widow of Martin Luther King Jr. and mother of the current SCLC president, is also on the board, which can remove King.

``You have consistently been insubordinate and displayed inappropriate obstinate behavior in the (negligent) carrying out of your duties as president of SCLC. To that end, please consider yourself noticed,'' Young wrote at the time of the suspension.

In a previous letter, Young raised the possibility that King no longer wanted to head the nonprofit group, which was co-founded in 1957 by King's father and the Rev. Joseph Lowery to help fight segregation in the South.

KING TO ANSWER CHARGES

A spokesman for King said he would hold a press conference later on Wednesday. The SCLC is scheduled to hold its annual convention next month in Montgomery, Alabama.

The dispute is the most serious King has faced since he took over the SCLC leadership in 1998. The SCLC and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (news - web sites) (NAACP) are considered the preeminent civil rights groups in the United States.

King has struggled to make his mark within his father's organization. He is the first SCLC president not to be a preacher and he has never enjoyed the popularity of his predecessors, the Rev. Ralph David Abernathy and Lowery, both close lieutenants to King's father.

King has highlighted issues such as racial profiling, church burnings and supported efforts to strip Confederate symbols from state flags in Georgia and Mississippi and to move a rebel battle flag from atop the statehouse in Columbia, South Carolina.

Last year, he joined Rev. Al Sharpton in a civil rights march to commemorate the 1963 March on Washington, D.C., where King Jr. gave his historic ``I have a dream'' speech.

-- Anonymous, July 25, 2001


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