The parent-child dynamic is an essential building block for all the interpersonal relationships that follow. Aside from its being a precursor for any social interactions during the course of a lifetime, there is also an inherent tension resulting from the parental responsibility of launching an offspring into a successful adulthood.
These issues are intensified when the parent is in the public eye, which might explain the intolerable behaviors exhibited by these progeny (and their forbearers) in the media. The stress of “measuring up” might be experienced by the spawn of anyone of significant achievement regardless of the arena of success.
A prime example of this was the first son and namesake of Jackie Robinson, who broke the baseball color line and contributed to the Civil Rights Movement. Jackie Robinson Jr. endured a childhood with emotional problems, while the pressures of having an accomplished, famous father discouraged any athletic ambitions the younger Robinson might have had. A stint in the Vietnam Conflict left him saddled with a heroin addiction, a dependence he eventually conquered before his premature death in a car accident at the age of 24 in 1971.
Regardless of race or sociological background, adolescent rebellion has been part and parcel of human evolution since Cain and Abel. In the last century, clinicians have narrowed down the causes to the quest for acceptance (from peers), attention (from everyone), control (especially in this transitional period between childhood and adulthood), freedom (from the constraints of childhood), and identity (apart from the example set by their parents).
A different sort of pressure may be experienced by the children of notables outside the frivolous realm of entertainment, especially when the parent is regarded as one who has bettered the condition of mankind, leaving a legacy with the expectation that the next generation should at least equal, if not surpass.
Achieving maturity under the limelight of celebrity only intensifies the growth process. The spotlight is especially harsh for the offspring of those who select public service, particularly those who rise to head of state.
One would think that having the leader of the free world as a father would draw all the attention anyone could want, but the daughters of the 43rd President of the United States of America apparently desired notoriety of a different sort.
President George W. Bush came to office with a set of nineteen-year-old (fraternal) twins, the first in the history of the American Presidency. Twins Barbara and Jenna are remembered for their diligent efforts to undermine the Secret Service detail charged with their safety. Jenna in particular would leave social events without informing her handlers, and often attempted to evade Secret Service “trail cars” by running red lights. Other frivolous behavior involved under-aged drinking, the use of fake I.D.s, and other typical teenage nonsense.
These high jinks were covered in 2009’s “In the President’s Secret Service: Behind the Scenes with Agents in the Line of Fire and the Presidents They Protect” by Ronald Kessler, but reports of the wayward girls behavior had been documented as far back as 2001 in mainstream publications like People Magazine. Jenna’s wild nature was matched by her then fiancée (and present husband) Henry Hager, whose bouts of binge drinking led to his being hospitalized at Georgetown University Hospital on Halloween night in 2005. On another separate occasion, an intoxicated Hager came close to initiating a bar fight before the Secret Service intervened.
Idealism versus the Necessities of Life
“All the kids in the civil rights movement grew up famous with very high expectations, but no one ever gave them a dime personally.”
-Activist, politician, and Pastor Andrew Jackson Young, Jr.
Being a drum major for social justice is no doubt uplifting for mankind, but that doesn’t necessarily translate into food on the table. Meeting the goals of equality requires more than the courage to face down the fire hoses and German Shepherds of embittered segregationists.
It meant long hours of debating and planning the logistics and methods of protest, and winning and training converts well in advance of engaging the status quo.
Of course the marches and demonstrations themselves did not end the exertions of the activists. Often they resulted in incarceration, likely in some jail in an inhospitable backwater. In the event one was lucky enough to escape arrest, there was the time consuming matter of courting the press and presenting the events in anticipation of the next strategic move.
All of which left very little time allotted for the exhaustive requirements of parenting.
The Curse of Celebrity
These problems can be a stumbling block, even in the most stable, nurturing family environment. And so we come to those saddled with the burden of birth into the mantel of the Civil Rights Movement. Andrew Young, an MLK advisor, ally, and confidant, parlayed the skills honed in the Civil Rights Era into success as Atlanta’s major, United Nations ambassador, and facilitator for international commerce to the Motherland. His first wife, Jean Childs Young, was a woman of accomplishment herself as an educator and advocate for children‘s rights.
These not inconsiderable achievements and the pressures of name recognition may have been a factor in the misbehavior of their only son, Andrew “Bo” Young III. Adolescence is a time of self discovery and boundary testing, and Bo gained a reputation in his native Atlanta as a hellion with episodes of alcohol and marijuana abuse, general delinquency, and brushes with the law. By his own admission, he actively cultivated his “bad boy” persona specifically to rebel against his parent’s status as pillars of society.
As a young man, he reconciled his personal aspirations with the expectations of others by becoming an internet entrepreneur, with the establishment of GiveLocally.net, a social giving platform that utilizes modern technology to address poverty in the new millennium via on-line philanthropy.
Tangible Assets
Although they were polar opposites as far as their religious beliefs as well their approach to America’s racial problems, Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X shared commonalities. Both sired four children in their lifetimes (Malcolm’s two additional daughters were born after his death).
The foremost icon of that era, King sired two sons and two daughters. At the time this article was written, three survive, as his second child, daughter Yolanda passed in 2007 at the age of 51.
Exposed to the sentiments of many within her father’s inner circle that she embrace the ministry, the political realm, or other aspect of social reform, Yolanda Denise King eventually gave into her artistic inclinations and became a stage actress, and in a nod to her father’s legacy, pursued his vocation in tandem with activism for the advance of human rights. Aside from mild controversy stemming from the selection of roles she chose to play in her theatrical endeavors, Yolanda Denise King exhibited quite dignity until her untimely death in Santa Monica, Calif. on May 15, 2007.
The specter of controversy has clouded the relationship between her surviving siblings, primarily surrounding the stewardship of The King Center, the non-profit set up by their mother in Atlanta, Ga., in the wake of their father’s death. Central to this disagreement were allegations by Martin Luther King III and Bernice Albertine King that their brother Dexter Scott King had mismanaged funding earmarked for the King Center, a claim boosted by his long-term residency in the affluent beach resort of Malibu, Calif. By 2010 the King children had reportedly reconciled.
Still, onlookers and veterans of the Civil Rights Era have expressed reservations about what they see as the children’s blatant commercialism of their father’s legacy.
Pragmatism over Principle
“It’s really about what happened to the children, and I feel that somewhere, in this one area, I really failed Martin.” -Harry Belafonte on the King offspring and their estrangement from their father’s legacy.
One constant pillar of support was the activist and entertainer Harry Belafonte. An insurance policy he’d established before the minister’s death went a long way towards providing for the grieving widow and orphans. This relationship reversed itself however, due to Belafonte’s association with radicals like Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, and his stewardship of personal papers given to him by the fallen Civil Rights icon. This has resulted in a lawsuit over who rightfully owns these manuscripts, an issue that is still being adjudicated. Belafonte is among the critics who feel the King children are overly focused on reaping the monetary benefits that are possible as a result of their father’s legacy, with the commitment to social justice being an after thought.
No one enjoyed a closer association with Dr. King then fellow minister Ralph David Abernathy. Even this friendship was marred by the jealousy Abernathy felt for the movement figurehead going back to King winning the 1964 Nobel Peace Prize (Abernathy felt they should have jointly been awarded the honor), and brought to the forefront with Abernathy’s 1989 autobiography “And The Walls Came Tumbling Down,” which many saw as a betrayal of King’s reputation with its focus on his marital infidelities.
This schism carried over into the next generation, a sentiment expressed by his son, Ralph David Abernathy III, who has achieved his own level of success and controversy. A high profile Georgia State Senator, he has been accused of fraud, misappropriation of state funds, possession of marijuana, and other misdemeanors. His sister, Donzaleigh Abernathy, is an author and actress of note living in Los Angeles, where she carries on her father’s heritage of activism. The latest family member to carry the illustrious name, grandson Ralph David Abernathy IV, is a star running back for the University of Cincinnati.
Tainted Legacy
“It’s almost impossible for anyone to live up to that name.”
-Andrew Jackson on the King Family Legacy.
Malcolm X, and the Nation of Islam that propelled him to national prominence, achieved their initial success through the rehabilitation of society’s “throwaways,” among them drug addicts and the chronically incarcerated. Malcolm himself was an ideal role model, having elevated himself form the ranks of petty criminal and hooliganism into a national leader and racial advocate. Despite his considerable efforts to uplift the downtrodden during his lifetime, the specter of delinquency has carried over to his progeny.
Malcolm was survived by six daughters. His second eldest, Qubilah Bahiyah Shabazz, possessing a history of alcohol and narcotics abuse, was implicated in a convoluted 1995 plot to murder Louis Farrakhan, the Nation of Islam head and alleged instigator of her father’s 1965 assassination. The specter of notoriety resurfaced shortly afterwards in 1997, when her 12-year-old son and first male descendent of Malcolm X, Malcolm Latif Shabazz, deliberately set a fire in the apartment of his grandmother and Malcolm X’s widow, Betty Shabazz, which led to her death. The younger Malcolm also led a troubled life, highlighted by bouts of delinquency, until he was beaten to death under questionable circumstances in Mexico City, circa 2013.
Latest media reports have the six Shabazz sisters bickering over their parents estate, primarily in the courts of New York’s Westchester County.
At this point in the millennium, almost exactly a half century since the events that made up the Civil Rights Movement, the scions of many of its most instrumental founders and planners continue the work begun by their forbearers. Others, motivated by resentment of the preconceptions of how their lives should be conducted, or simply intimidation by the challenge of “measuring up,” choose to ignore the call to duty, or actively rebel against expectations and goals that had little to do with their own self image.
More over, the stress of being in the spotlight has its own residual after effects. Media saturation encourages people to manufacture their own, often distorted perceptions of individuals they have never even met. Circumstance and the passage of time often encourages these children to be raised in environments totally different then the ones that existed when their parents achieved their notoriety, making it inevitable that they disappoint those expecting a persona gleamed through the distorted prism of a jaded press.
