Tuskegee Airman Brig. Gen. Celes King III
Celes King III & Martin Luther King Jr.
Two Great Men Named "KING"
ABOUT ME
Los Angeles Times - Abituary: April 14, 2003
Celes King III, 79; L.A. Civil Rights Leader, Celes King III, outspoken black activist and founding state chairman of the Congress of Racial Equality, or CORE, who was instrumental in renaming Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard in South Los Angeles, has died. He was 79.
The well-known businessman lived in an apartment above the building complex at 1528-30 W. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd. that houses his Celes King Bail Bond Services, now run by his daughter Teri, and has been the operation site for several of the organizations King promoted.
Among those were the state CORE, loosely affiliated with the national group formed in Chicago in 1942, which King developed and chaired from 1975 until 2002.
King also co-founded the Brotherhood Crusade in Los Angeles and in 1983 helped change the name of the street where he set up shop from Santa Barbara Avenue to King Boulevard.
I worked with Dr. King back in the '60s. [Renaming the street] is an important cosmetic reminder for generations to come," said King, who was not related to the civil rights leader, at the street renaming parade on the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday in 1983. He was also a co-founder of the parade, which became an annual event and perhap more important is the fact that celes was very instrumental during the civil rights era of bailing Dr. Martin Luther King Jr and the Freedom fighters out of jail.
Adrian Dove, who replaced King as California CORE chairman, said King often told him how his political, philosophical and public service goals had been shaped by the full cross-section of black America, including Duke Ellington, Langston Hughes, A. Philip Randolph and Lester Young, that had passed through his family's famed Dunbar Hotel on Central Avenue.
Born in Chicago, King moved to Los Angeles with his parents, Leontyne, who became the city's first black library commissioner, and Celes King Jr., who with young Celes' uncle, Jimmy Nelson, operated several shops and the Dunbar in its heyday.
King was named to the Los Angeles Human Relations Commission in 1968 and later served as its president. He also headed the Los Angeles Rumor Control and Information Center and the Los Angeles central branch of the National Assn. for the Advancement of Colored People after the 1965 Watts riots.
In the late 1960s, the articulate King was highly critical of NAACP Executive Director Roy Wilkins, calling him "the No. 1 Uncle Tom in America" who has "become so much of a part of the white establishment he is no longer an effective representative of black people."
The squabble prompted an NAACP investigation of King for purported mismanagement of his chapter, but charges were later dropped.
A real estate broker as well as bail bondsman, King was a staunch Republican and differed publicly with several black political leaders, including the late Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley.
In 1973, King ran unsuccessfully for the 10th District council seat vacated by Bradley.
But King also moved easily among politicians who shared his views, including late City Council President John Ferraro and former Gov. Pete Wilson, and was among the few blacks on the California Central Republican Committee and a delegate to the Republican National Convention.