7 of Martin Luther King Jr.'s family members who have continued his legacy

• Though Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in 1968, he has a number of relatives — sons, daughters, and grandchild — who have worked to continue his legacy.
• All four of his children have continued to be staunch advocates for civil rights.
• His only granddaughter, 10-year-old Yolanda Renee King, spoke at the 2018 March for Our Lives rally.

Civil rights leader and political activist Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in 1968 in Memphis, Tennessee. We honor his legacy every year with Martin Luther King Jr. Day.

But there are other ways people are honoring MLK's legacy, and some of those people are his own relatives. All four of MLK's children are civil rights activists and have worked to continue their father's mission. Even Yolanda Renee King, the only granddaughter of MLK and Coretta Scott King, is on her way toward becoming an activist, and she's only 10 years old.

Keep scrolling to learn more about members of MLK's family who have worked to continue his legacy. 

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Coretta Scott King: widow

MLK and Coretta Scott King met while he was studying at Boston University and she at the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston. The two were married in 1953, and after completing their studies, moved to Montgomery, Alabama, where King would serve as pastor of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church.

The couple engaged in civil rights activism throughout the ensuing decades, until MLK's death in 1968. Coretta Scott King, however, went on to continue her activism for the rest of her life. She set up the King Center for Nonviolent Social Change in Atlanta, and "traveled throughout the world speaking out on behalf of racial and economic justice, women’s and children’s rights, gay and lesbian dignity, religious freedom" and much more, according to the King Center's website.

Martin Luther King III: son

The eldest son of MLK and Coretta Scott King, Martin Luther King III was born in 1957, making him only 11 years old at the time of his father's death. But he set out to continue his father's legacy. After graduating from Morehouse College in 1979, King III became an elected representative in Georgia. 

He founded a nonprofit called Realizing The Dream in 2006, which eventually merged with The King Center. King III also received the Ramakrishna Bajaj Memorial Global Award "for outstanding contributions to the promotion of human rights" in 2010, and he continues to advocate for his father's mission of non-violence. 

Yolanda King: daughter

Yolanda King was MLK and Coretta Scott King's first child, born in 1955 in Montgomery, Alabama. She was 13 years old at the time of her father's passing, and she called him "my first buddy" and said she was "tremendously loved."

King continued her father's legacy as an actor and motivational speaker, advocating for equality and non-violence. According to The New York Times, King spent her life writing and producing plays and giving speeches to groups ranging from "elementary schoolchildren and Fortune 500 corporations." She also acted in commercials, and the common thread of her work was to infuse it "with her family’s deeper purposes."

She died in 2007 at the age of 51.