[Update: King’s sons paid twice the going rate while King Center crumbles.]

We were driving by the King Center this MLK weekend when I said to my wife how I had expected the King Center to be so much more than it is. It turns out that the King Center is even less than I thought.

The AJC reports that King Center needs some $11.6m in repairs. The total cost of building the twenty-four-year-old facility, in today’s dollars, would be $16m. If my high school algebra still holds water (unlike the tomb’s reflecting pool), the cost of repairs amounts to 72.5% of what it would take to start from scratch.

I’m trying to imagine what it would take for me to neglect my home to the extent that I’d need to shell out 72.5% of what it took to buy it in the first place, just to get it in decent working order again.

The King family has long insisted that they own the MLK legacy. MLK3 even sold his father’s image for a tv commercial a few year’s back.

It’s time for the King family to completely turn over the King Center to the National Park Service. The MLK legacy belongs to us all, and the King family has proven they aren’t up to snuff at preserving it.