"I was angry they left me out of history": Lionel Richie opens up about being shielded from Martin Luther King Jr.’s civil rights marches as a child

Long before his music career, Lionel Richie was a child in the segregated South. Now, in his new memoir, he reflects on how being shielded from the civil rights movement still shaped who he became.

In an exclusive interview with The Guardian, the singer recalled growing up in Tuskegee, just about 40 miles from Montgomery, Alabama, and how their parents kept him and his sister Deborah away from activism.

While writing his memoir, Truly, Lionel Richie came to recognize how deeply he'd always felt connected to the movement Martin Luther King Jr. was leading at the time.

"What I didn't realize was that it made up the core of who I was. At the time I didn't realize because our parents made a point of keeping a lot of that edge away from us. We were in the bubble."

The "Stuck on You" hitmaker recalled how desperate he was to join his peers in the marches, especially when King himself led them from Selma to Montgomery in 1965. Unfortunately, his parents prevented him, which in turn caused tension in the family.

"I was longing to be part of it. And my parents kept telling me it was dangerous. I was angry, because I thought they had left me out of some of the most significant history."

Lionel Richie added:

"My anger came when I realized what my grandmother and grandfather had gone through, what my mom and dad had gone through."

“Every day, I was aware”: Lionel Richie opens up about his parents’ anger

Eventually, he recalled asking his parents the reason why they didn't inform and involve him and his sister.

"Their answer was, 'We didn't want anything to limit you in your thinking of what the possibilities for your future could be. And if we had attached you to our anger then you would be stuck in our anger.'"

The "Endless Love" singer told The Guardian that his parents' resentment and frustration were impossible to miss.

"You couldn't miss it. Every day, I was aware of the anger, because there was a Tuskegee anger."

Lionel Richie also shared an unforgettable experience when he was eight, when he drank water from a whites-only fountain during a shopping trip with his father, Lyonel Sr. This angered a group of white men, who approached them and repeatedly used the N-word.

The singer's father simply told him to get in the car, then they left. Half a decade later, Lionel Richie brought up the incident again as he couldn't bring himself to talk about it in the last five years. Lyonel Sr. explained:

“I had a choice that day – whether to be your father or be a man. I chose to be your father, because I wanted to be here to see you grow up.”

Truly by Lionel Richie was released on Sept. 30, published under HarperCollins and William Collins. The memoir is also available in hardcover, paperback, eBook, and audiobook formats.

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