Martin and Alfred: Two Brothers, One Dream


“There is nothing new in the world except the history we do not know,” said former President Harry S. Truman. Those words resonated with powerful significance April 3, 2009, when Mrs. Naomi King and Dr. Babs Onabanjo debuted in Savannah a preview of the film, A.D. King, Brother to the Dreamer, Behold the Dream.
The screenings, sponsored by the Savannah Coastal Southern Christian Leadership Conference, were held at the Telfair Museum Jepson Center for the Arts and the Lake Mayer Community Center on the eve of the forty-first anniversary of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s, assassination.

Whereas Americans generally--and appropriately so—associate the name King with the more famous slain civil rights leader and his widow Coretta Scott King, many are not aware that his brother Rev. Alfred Daniel (A.D.) Williams King also lost his life during the Civil Rights Movement. Although there is some debate over the exact circumstances of A.D. King’s death, one of the most moving moments in the film is footage of the King brothers’ father, the senior Rev. Martin Luther King, proclaiming that the civil rights struggle may have taken both his sons, but it could not destroy his faith, hope, or love.

“Martin and his brother A.D. and many other leaders walked together, with the members of our communities,” said Mrs. Naomi King, the widow of A.D. King. “We faced guns, dogs, billy clubs, bombs, and other terrors, yet we pressed on, and that is what you must do today… A.D. stood by Martin even as Aaron stood by Moses.”

The extended film trailer included interviews with numerous civil rights activists speaking about the contributions of A.D. King to the civil rights struggle. Among them were former Atlanta Mayor Andrew Jackson Young, former SCLC president Rev. Dr. Joseph Lowery, Elder Bernice King, Federal Judge Thelton Henderson, and writer and activist Elizabeth Williams-Omilami. The completed film is currently scheduled to premier in January 2010 at Moorehouse College in Atlanta, followed by a nationwide broadcast via Comcast networks.

Also during the event, Savannah Coastal SCLC president, Rev. Carl W. Scott Gilliard, announced that SCLC will host the organization’s statewide convention in Savannah in October.

For more information on Rev. A.D. King and the forthcoming documentary on his life, please visit the A.D. King Foundation website at www.adkingfoundation.com or telephone Dr. Babs Onabanjo at (770) 873-9265. Visitors to the website may also view the Brother to the Dreamer trailer there.


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