King Adviser James Bevel, 72; Incest Sentence Clouded Legacy

Wearing a yarmulke on his head in honor of Old Testament prophets, Rev. Bevel won arguments among King's inner circle by quoting the Bible. He once asked activist John Lewis, now a U.S. congressman from Georgia, "Why you always preaching this social gospel and not the Gospel gospel?"

Rev. Bevel grew active in the anti-war movement, once suggesting an "international peace army" to unite civil rights and antiwar activists. He had a great effect on King's thinking, notably urging King to confront the Vietnam War more directly.

King's final Sunday sermon, at Washington National Cathedral, focused on the war; days later, on April 4, 1968, he was assassinated in Memphis. Rev. Bevel, who was standing in the hotel parking lot below the balcony where King was shot, helped lead many of King's unfinished projects, including a demonstration to support striking Memphis sanitation workers.

But Rev. Bevel was forced out of the SCLC for his disturbing personal behavior. Lewis wrote in his memoir "Walking With the Wind" that Rev. Bevel once cloistered himself in a hotel room with Spelman College students, declared himself a prophet and forced them to drink his urine as a loyalty test.

More publicly, Rev. Bevel also embarrassed many in the movement with his support of claims of innocence by the late King assassin James Earl Ray.

"Bevel had so much hope, so much optimism," Lewis told the Atlanta Journal and Constitution in 2000. "I think it was too much for him and many others when King died."

James Luther Bevel was born Oct. 19, 1936, in the farming community of Itta Bena, Miss., also the birthplace of Marion Barry, the D.C. Council member and former mayor. He was one of 17 children born to a sharecropper father and a mother who frequently beat the children.

His early life included stints in the Navy and work as a doo-wop singer. He disbanded the group to enter the ministry and graduated in 1961 from Nashville's American Baptist Theological Seminary, where he met fellow students LaFayette and Lewis.

After King's death, Rev. Bevel fell into a long association with fringe movements. He was the 1992 vice presidential running mate of independent candidate Lyndon H. LaRouche Jr., who was then in a federal prison serving a sentence for mail fraud and income tax evasion.

Rev. Bevel returned to the headlines for helping Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan conceive the 1995 Million Man March.

Rev. Bevel was married four times, including once to activist Diane Nash. He fathered 16 children with seven women.

In April, a Loudoun County judge convicted him of having sex in the early 1990s with his then-teenage daughter, and he was sentenced in October to 15 years in prison. He was living in Loudoun County when the crime occurred.

At the time of his conviction, Rev. Bevel accused people of plotting against him. "I'm a social scientist," he said. "Who are these people? Are they communist guys? Who is trying to destroy me?"

Staff writer Hamil R. Harris contributed to this report.