Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, December 29, 1994 TAG: 9412290113
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-10 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: ATLANTA LENGTH: Medium
The family initially told the Park Service to stop by day's end Wednesday, but later, family spokesman Phillip Jones said the service might be permitted to remain until sometime today. The Park Service has been conducting tours of the slain civil rights leader's crypt at the invitation of King's widow since 1983.
The dispute centers on the Park Service's plan to build an $11.8 million visitors center across the street from the Martin Luther King Center for Nonviolent Social Change, where King's crypt is located. The center is to be completed in time for the 1996 Olympics.
The King family opposes the center because it wants to build an interactive museum focusing on the slain civil rights leader's life at the same site, which the Park Service acquired from the city of Atlanta in a deal worked out in Congress with the help of Democratic Rep. John Lewis, a former King aide and civil rights leader.
The dispute has divided Atlanta's black community. Many residents support the government's project, which would provide improvements to the neighborhood; they accuse the family of simply wanting to make a profit.
Jones said the family's plan to build the museum has been misrepresented by news reports calling it a for-profit operation. The plan was conceived by King's youngest son, 33-year-old Dexter Scott King.
In a Dec. 18 column, Atlanta Journal-Constitution editorial page editor Cynthia Tucker called the proposed King Park ``a sort of I Have a Dreamland, to make a profit from a Disneyesque trip through the civil rights movement.''
That brought a rebuke last week from Dexter King, who said black journalists such as Tucker owe their jobs to his father. At the same news conference, Coretta Scott King said, ``The same evil forces that destroyed Martin Luther King are now trying to destroy my family.''
Most tourists at the King historic district, just east of downtown Atlanta, were unaware of the dispute Wednesday. The district attracts 1 million visitors a year.
by CNB