A black US president was my father's dream; EXCLUSIVE 40 YEARS ON .. MARTIN LUTHER KING'S SON ON HIS FATHER'S LEGACY.

Byline: by ROS WYNNE-JONES

THE man called Martin Luther King grips the lectern in front of him, and for a moment it is as if time has stood still.

A familiar face hunches forward, the same sing-song voice soars into the auditorium and at the back of the auditorium, elderly women wipe their eyes.

But what Martin Luther King III is telling them would have been an impossibility in the time of his father.

This son of the legendary civil rights activist, assassinated 40 years ago this week, reminds the hushed London audience that a black man is within touching distance of the US Presidency.

"It wouldn't be possible to have a Senator Obama had it not been for that movement Martin Luther King Jnr led over 40 years ago," King tells them, turning to his father's famous I Have A Dream speech.

"To elect Senator Obama would be a proportion of that dream fulfilled."

This Friday - April 4 - is the anniversary of his father's death, cut down by an assassin's bullet in room 306 of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis.

But his famous dream lives on, both in the shape of Barack Obama and in the new kind of politics in the US where a black President is finally possible.

Earlier, speaking exclusively to the Daily Mirror backstage at the commemorations at the Royal Festival Hall, King spoke warmly of Barack Obama.

"I am excited about the prospect of his being a candidate and I hope he is victorious because he can bring our nation together," he said.

"But I wouldn't be disappointed if Senator Clinton won. Obama has a better chance of uniting our country, though.

Clinton has a more difficult set of circumstances to over-come." King, who was just 10 years old when his father was killed, says the anniversary has brought back the sadness of his assassination.

"He was like our playmate," he remembers. "We used to do exercises with him at the YMCA. My brother Dexter and I travelled with him two or three times when he campaigned around the country. We had incredible quality of time with him, even if the quantity was not so long."

He remembers how his mother, the late civil rights activist Coretta Scott King, broke the news of their father's death to him and his three siblings.

"The way she said it to us was: 'Your dad's gone home to live with God.

And when a person serves God well, they are rewarded and He brings the person home to live with Him.

'When you see your father, he won't be able to hug you, but he will appear as if he is sleeping.'"

Was he afraid, knowing an assassin had taken his father's life.

"I was only 10, but I don't think at the time we were afraid. I was so overwhelmed with loss and grief. I remember how I couldn't understand why a man who practised and preached love could be gunned down.

"We were aware of riots across the country, but we were in a kind of daze.

Although we knew something like this could have happened to Daddy, we didn't expect that it really would."

Instead, he recalls the extraordinary strength of his mother who died of cancer two years ago.

"She was an incredible woman," he says.

"My daddy died on April 4. By April 9, my mom was already leading a civil rights march even though no one had been captured formy daddy's murder.

"It was the demonstration my father was supposed to have led."

Coretta Scott King went on to become a famous civil rights campaigner in her own right.

"As well as her own campaigns, Mom set up the King Centre and campaigned successfully for Martin Luther King Day on his birthday," he says. "And somehow she also raised the four of us."

And all this against the backdrop of repeated tragedy. "Many people know how my daddy died," he said. "But not many know that six years later, my grandmother was killed by an assassin's bullet playing the organ in church.

"Or that my father's brother - who was investigating my father's murder - mysteriously drowned."

King, a consummate human rights activist like his father, had been invited to London to mark the anniversary of his father's death ahead of the major commemorations later this week in the US.

Funded by the Arts Council and hosted by the playwright Kwame Kwei Armah, the event also featured readings from Martin Luther King Jnr's speeches.

London's Mayor, Ken Livingstone, introduced the event, remembering that while Dr King was leading the civil rights struggle 40 years ago, in the UK Enoch Powell was delivering his infamous Rivers of Blood speech.

"Now we are on the verge of seeing a black man being elected President because ofDrMartin Luther King," Livingstone said.

"And because of the hundreds of thousands of other people who said this discrimina tion has to end. Many gave their lives, many were lynched and many were murdered."

When Martin Luther King III took to the stage he received a standing ovation for his speech where he called for what his father labelled the 'Triple Evils' of poverty, racism and militarism to be ended 40 years on.

He spoke with both humility and conviction, and there was a familiar cadence to his words as he denounced the Iraq war.

"Just as my father was against the war in Vietnam, he would have been against the Iraq War," he said cheers.

"After September 11 2001, we could have thought maybe we ought to do things differently this time. We could wonder why were we attacked, engage in dialogue instead of creating more terrorism for generations yet unborn. Instead we chose to go into a war that we will never win."

And he shared his credo with the hundreds who had attended the free event.

"Be ashamed to die until you've done something to make this land a little better.

Never give up. Never give in. Never give out." And as the son spoke, his father's dream lived on.

FOR more information about Martin Luther King III visit www.realizingthedream.org

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CAPTION(S):

FUTURE: Barack Obama; LEGACY: Martin with Mirror's Ros; 1960 MEMORIES: Martin with parents and sister; OVATION: Martin Luther King III takes his father's great mission forward Pictures: ROGER ALLEN