Xernona Clayton Interview: The Surprising Humor of Martin Luther King Jr.

Xernona Clayton discusses Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s plan of love to fight the evils of poverty, injustice, and maltreatment. She recalls getting Dr. King to laugh on his last birthday when he was depressed, says he was the funniest man alive and talks about how he was always late.

Xernona Clayton was born in Muskogee, Oklahoma. She graduated from Tennessee State Agricultural and Industrial College and completed her graduate degree from the University of Chicago. Clayton began her career in the Civil Rights Movement with the National Urban League in Chicago before moving to Atlanta in 1965 and working side by side with Coretta Scott King and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. at the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). In 1967 she became the first African American in the Southeast to have her own prime-time television talk show, The Xernona Clayton Show, broadcast on the local CBS affiliate. By 1970, Clayton joined Turner Broadcasting System, where she spent thirty years as a corporate executive including Corporate Vice President for Urban Affairs.

From the HBO / Kunhardt Film Foundation (KFF) Documentary “King in the Wilderness” that follows Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. during the last years of his life: from the passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965 to his assassination in 1968, through personal stories of the people who were around him.

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Xernona Clayton, Friend and Organizer, SCLC
Interview By: Trey Ellis
Interview Date: March 28, 2017

Chapters
00:00 Meeting Dr. King
08:59 King In The Wilderness
26:22 Dr. King’s Personal Side
34:00 Coretta Scott King and Children
56:16 Dr. King was not Punctual
01:04:50 Dr. King’s Family
01:10:10 Dr. King’s Assassination
01:45:28 Funny Stories About Dr. King
01:50:58 FBI
02:04:23 President Johnson
02:06:05 Dr. King’s Legacy

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