Martin Luther King Relative Will Speak In Aurora

AURORA, IL — For a special Martin Luther King Jr. Day celebration, the City of Lights will be welcoming Mrs. Naomi King, the reverend's sister-in-law. Jan. 15 would have been Dr. King's 89th birthday, and this year also marks the 50th anniversary of his assassination.

2018's MLK Day celebration, Remembering Marin, is a community-wide celebration Jan. 15. from 6 - 8 p.m. at West Aurora High School. Mrs. Naomi Ruth Barber King and her husband were alongside the reverend and Coretta Scott King for pivotal moments in the Civil Rights Movement.

Born in 1931 in Dothan, Alabama, Naomi was raised by her single mother. In Atlanta as a teen, she began to grow spiritually under the pastorate of Rev. Martin Luther King, Sr. and became friends with the King children. A.D. Williams, King's youngest brother, married her in 1950. Naomi and A.D. were present for the Montgomery bus boycott and when MLK died. Naomi and A.D.'s home was bombed, too. A.D.'s 1969 death was ruled an accidental drowning, but he was known to be a great swimmer. Naomi still proclaims A.D. was murdered.

A Seattle Times article pointed out that A.D.'s death was "obscured by other events. As his body was being taken to the morgue, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin were walking on the moon." Naomi asked, "How can you be forgotten if you never been known?" By 2009, all three of her children had succumb to fatal heart attacks.

Today, she's an author and a speaker who travels all over the world to share her stories of life with Rev. MLK and Rev. A.D. King. You can catch her at West Aurora High School, 1201 W. New York Street, Jan. 15.

Patch file photo by Delores 'Dee' Turner