Family Squabbles Sully Legacy Of Civil Rights Icons

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By Javier E. David

What is it about money that brings out the worst in human nature? Since time immemorial, people attempting to amass or control wealth -- primarily for the wrong reasons -- feel compelled to commit the unethical or outright fraudulent. Nowhere is that unsavory tendency more visible than when it involves family members. The impulse to have material wealth can be a powerful lure that invariably sets brother against brother (or for that matter sister, grandmother mother, aunt, cousin, etc.). Long-simmering blood feuds spill out into the open, all in the name of money.

Which is why watching the heirs of civil rights figures Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr. can make for both compelling drama and cringe-inducing spectacle. Both iconic families have seen their familial divisions laid bare in the court of public opinion, with money being at the heart of much of their divisions. Among other things, Malcolm X's heirs have been embroiled in a battle over the management of their father's estate, which at an estimated $1.4 million, is a relatively modest sum. Meanwhile, the King offspring spent more than a year in court before finally reaching an agreement on how to divide the spoils of their father's archives and personal papers, reportedly worth more than $30 million. CONTINUE....