Pardoned professor is on his way home

February 23, 2000
Web posted at: 4:52 p.m. EST (2152 GMT)

ATLANTA (CNN) -- A Georgia native who fled the United States after he refused induction into the U.S. Army because the all-white draft board wouldn't address him as "Mr." was on his way back home Wednesday, thanks to a presidential pardon.

Preston King, 63, fled his hometown of Albany, Georgia, in 1961 after being sentenced to 18 months in prison. Over the years, he made a life for himself as a professor in England.

King's family -- including his daughter Oona, a member of Britain's House of Commons -- planned a reunion at the Atlanta airport Wednesday afternoon, where King was scheduled to arrive from London.

"I can't express to you how elated the family is," nephew Chevene King said before his family left Albany to drive to Atlanta. "I'm sure to a large degree it won't actually sink in until we see him home."

In an interview with CNN before he left London, King said he was "going with great expectations."

"I'm a little bit numb, but I'm going back," said King, the former head of the political science department at Lancaster University.

He said he expected to find the United States "radically transformed," and that the memory of leaving his home is still painful.

"There are very elemental things that make you a human being," he said. "All that was stripped away."

Clinton granted King a pardon on Monday so he could return to Albany for the Thursday funeral of his oldest brother, Clennon W. King Jr. The pardon expunged all convictions related to his induction into the armed forces.

In 1958, King, who had been granted time by his draft board to pursue a master's degree at the London School of Economics and Political Science, was told to report for induction.

King noted that the draft board addressed him as "Mr. Preston King" before learning he was black and "Preston" after that. He refused to report for an Army physical until the board addressed him as "Mr.," as they did white draftees.

During his three-day trip to the United States, King planned to call the president and to thank retired U.S. District Judge William A. Bootle, who presided over his trial in 1961 and petitioned Clinton to pardon him.

CNN White House Correspondent Major Garrett and the Associated Press contributed to this story.

Clinton pardons Preston King, figure in race-bias case
February 21, 2000

U.S. Army
Lancaster University
British House of Commons

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