The HistoryMakers

Pulitzer Prize winning commentator Colbert King was born September 20, 1939 to Amelia Colbert King and Isaiah King III in Washington, D.C. His 19th century Colbert ancestors were sent to Liberia by the American Colonization Society and his great grandfather met Lincoln at Richmond as part of the 5th Regiment Massachusetts Colored Volunteer Cavalry. Growing up in the old Foggy Bottom section of Washington, King attended Thaddeus Stevens Elementary School, Francis Junior High School, and graduated from Paul Laurence Dunbar High School in 1957, where he was a member of the ROTC and Dunbar's championship drill team. King earned a B.A. in government from Howard University in 1961, where he wrote a critique of Lyndon Johnson and the Civil Rights Bill of 1957, and heard lectures by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Patrice Lumumba and Walter White.

King served as a commissioned officer in the U.S. Army's Adjutant General's Corps from 1961 to 1963. After a brief time with the U.S. Civil Service Commission, he served as a special agent for the U.S. State Department but quit because of his disagreement with Cointelpro. In 1970, King, on a fellowship with James Farmer at Health Education and Welfare, called attention to sickle-cell anemia and the unequal attention given minority health care. From 1971 to 1972, he worked for VISTA. King drafted the Washington D.C. Home Rule Bill in 1974 and the Conflict of Interests Bill. In 1975, King left government service, but returned in 1976 as Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Treasury Department. In 1979, King, as an executive of the World Bank, successfully helped Robert McNamara include the People's Republic of China. King left in 1980 to become vice president of the Middle East and Africa at Riggs National Bank. At Riggs, King was concerned with federal financial services, international banking and third world indebtedness. In 1990, King accepted an offer to join the editorial board of the Washington Post. He started writing a weekly column in 1995 and in 2000, King was appointed deputy editor of the editorial page.

In 2003, King received the Pulitzer Prize, as the committee put it, "for his against the grain columns that speak to people in power with ferocity and wisdom". King is a critic of the criminal justice system, religious fundamentalism and the exploitation of the poor. King lives in North West Washington and is married to Gwendolyn Stewart King. His son, Rob King, deputy managing editor of the Philadelphia Inquirer, calls him "The King of Dads and the Dad of Kings".

King was interviewed by The HistoryMakers on May 4, 2005.