Mark WiedmerKingston Frazier was a student in his grandmother Ernestine Reese's daycare center back in Opelika, Alabama, when he first learned about Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
"The main thing she would share with us was the nonviolent method of his message," recalled Frazier, now a junior at Dalton State College and a guard on the Roadrunners basketball team. "She would always tell us that Dr. King's goal was to unify."
On Feb. 15, 2018, Frazier experienced the pain and anger of gun violence in a way he had never thought possible. His 30-year-old cousin Cedric Parker became a homicide victim, dying from a single gunshot wound in Auburn, Alabama.
Frazier could have lashed out and chosen a dangerous outlet to channel his grief and bitterness. Instead, he followed a path that surely would have made the late Dr. King proud. He started a summer basketball league for young men ages 18 to 25 in Opelika.
As Frazier said of his cousin in a Dalton State news release this past week: "I realized if this could happen to him it could happen to anyone. I know problems happen because people are bored. I wanted to give them another outlet. I wanted to stop the problem and the violence in my community."
Having a dream and making that dream a reality are two different things, however - especially for a young man who was still taking classes at Alabama's Enterprise State Community College when he first began to formulate plans for the summer league.
Alex Ireland, the interim head coach of the Roadrunners, noted the impressiveness of "the ability to organize something like that while you're taking college classes. Hiring officials. Getting uniforms. Finding a gym. That's not something your average 19-year-old can pull off."
But by devoting more than 100 hours of his time to the league before the first game was played, Frazier did. In fact, he did it so well that this summer the league will expand from four teams of 10 players each to six such teams. And because it was such a success, Frazier was recently awarded the 2019 Young MLK Community Service Award given by the East Central Alabama Chapter of the National Forum for Black Public Administrators.
"The league provided a non-violent competitive atmosphere where high school graduates, college students, and young men could come together to promote unity within the city," the organization noted in a news release. "The games were well-attended and received by the community. Kingston has a heart for all people and knows that there is strength in unity."
Because Frazier is in the middle of basketball season and the Roadrunners have a game tonight at Martin Methodist College in Pulaski, Tennessee, his parents, Terrence and Taneisha, will receive the award on their son's behalf Tuesday in Opelika.
Not that the honor was ever on his mind when planning the summer league.
"I was shocked to receive the award," Frazier noted in Dalton State's release. "I wasn't doing this for the recognition. I just wanted to create something for my community. I wanted something people could get excited about each summer."
Ireland said this unselfishness is almost always on display on the court, where he views the 6-foot, 168-pound Frazier as "our Swiss Army knife. He can pass, he can shoot, he can defend. He's unselfish, but he's a competitor. He does whatever it takes to win."
The Roadrunners' stats back that up. Frazier, who is majoring in health and wellness, has averaged 5.6 points, 3.1 rebounds, 1.5 assists and 0.8 steal while appearing in 17 of the team's 18 games so far this season.
Still, Frazier's concern for others is what makes him special.
"I'm so proud of Kingston," Ireland said. "As Dr. King taught us, I appreciate people who fight for a cause bigger than themselves."
As we pause today for the federal holiday celebrating King's birthday (he was actually born Jan. 15, 1929, in Atlanta), Frazier is another example of King's dream that every person be recognized for the "content of their character" rather than "the color of their skin."
But it was something Frazier said when asked what the legacy of King means to him that would seem to have extra importance on this particular MLK Day, when tensions - racial, economic, political - have rarely felt higher throughout the land.
"Two things, I think," he said. "Dr. King's dream to bring people together. And his desire to keep his composure in any situation."
Too bad that nearly 51 years after King was assassinated in Memphis, dying of a single gunshot wound, his wisdom has rarely been exhibited less or needed more by far too many of those we've entrusted to lead us today.
May we all share the dream that Frazier's generation can finally correct that.
Contact Mark Wiedmer at mwiedmer@timesfreepress.com.