[6] King and his siblings were assured an education thanks to the help of Harry Belafonte, who set up a trust fund for them years prior to their father's assassination.

[8] King attended his father's alma mater of Morehouse College, where he studied business administration from 1979 to 1984.

[10] As President, he cut the number of staff from 70 to 14 and shut down a child care center among a shift from conventional activities to prioritizing preserving his father's legacy.

[13] Dexter was a dedicated vegan and animal rights activist, having been introduced to vegetarianism in the late 1980s by Dick Gregory.

[14][15] On August 24, 2013, King attended the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington, the event at which his father delivered his "I Have a Dream" speech.

[18][20] In 1997, 29 years after Martin Luther King Jr.'s death, Dexter met with James Earl Ray, the man imprisoned for his father's 1968 murder.

[25] At a 1999 press conference, Dexter was subsequently asked by a reporter, "there are many people out there who feel that as long as these conspirators remain nameless and faceless there is no true closure, and no justice".

Dexter's elder sister, Yolanda, collapsed at the home of his best friend, Philip Madison Jones, on May 15, 2007.

[37]Dexter charged The Atlanta Journal-Constitution with "viciously attacking" his family after the newspaper printed a claim by a German television program that his sister Bernice wanted $4,000 or $5,000 for a ten-minute interview, which King denied.

[39] Dexter filed countersuits against his siblings over their use of the King Center and over the ownership of their mother's personal papers, which he wanted to share with a biographer for a deal with Penguin Books.

[44] In 2016, the siblings' remaining legal dispute, over the ownership of King's 1964 Nobel Peace Prize medal, was settled out of court.

[45] Dexter King died of prostate cancer at home in Malibu, California, on January 22, 2024, 8 days before his 63rd birthday.