Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. College Preparatory High School is a high school located in Chicago's
KenwoodKenwood, located on the South Side of the City of Chicago, Illinois, is one of the 77 well-defined Chicago community areas.Kenwood was part of Hyde Park Township, which was annexed by the City of Chicago in 1889....
neighborhood on Drexel Blvd., about one kilometer from
Lake MichiganLake Michigan is one of the five Great Lakes of North America and the only one located entirely within the United States. It is the second largest of the Great Lakes by volume and the third largest by surface area, after Lake Superior and Lake Huron...
. Commonly referred to as
King College Prep or KCP, it is one of the Chicago Public School System's eight selective enrollment schools, which means that its approximately 900 students must apply for acceptance, based on academic achievement and test scores. In 2010, King College Prep was named a "Silver Medal" school by "
U.S. News and World Report" in its annual rankings of America's best high schools.
Curriculum
Honors classes and Advanced Placement courses are offered in every subject area. College coursework is accessible through King’s college and university partners. Advanced coursework is possible in Visual and Performing Arts (Band, Orchestra, Dance, Drama,
Graphic ArtsA type of fine art, graphic art covers a broad range of art forms. Graphic art is typically two-dimensional and includes calligraphy, photography, drawing, painting, printmaking, lithography, typography, serigraphy , and bindery. Graphic art also consists of drawn plans and layouts for interior...
, Vocal Music), Architecture and Engineering, and Computer Technology. KCP specializes in Architecture and Engineering as well as
Information TechnologyInformation technology is the acquisition, processing, storage and dissemination of vocal, pictorial, textual and numerical information by a microelectronics-based combination of computing and telecommunications...
.
Athletics
King's teams are known as the Jaguars. The men's basketball team was dominant in the 1990s, produced numerous
Illinois Mr. BasketballEach year the Illinois Mr. Basketball award is given to the person chosen as the best high school boys basketball player in the U.S. state of Illinois....
's, and were nationally ranked on a regular basis. A 1982 graduate, Efrem Winters, was named MVP of that year's McDonald's All-American game. After a college career at
IllinoisThe Illinois Fighting Illini men's basketball team is an NCAA Division I college basketball team competing in the Big Ten Conference. Home games are played at Assembly Hall, located on the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign's campus in Champaign....
, Winters was drafted by the NBA's
Atlanta HawksThe Atlanta Hawks are an American professional basketball team based in Atlanta, Georgia. They are part of the Southeast Division of the Eastern Conference in the National Basketball Association .-The first years:...
. Former NBA player
Marcus LibertyMarcus Liberty is a retired American professional basketball player.-High School:Liberty attended Chicago King High School from 1983 to 1987. During his time at King, Liberty led his basketball teams to an IHSA State Championship in 1986 and a second-place finish in 1987...
, who was a member of the 1989 Illinois Flyin' Illini attended King and was widely regarded as the #1 player in the nation. In 1993, King had 7'2"
Thomas HamiltonThomas Thaddeus Hamilton is an American former NBA basketball player.-Pre-professional:Hamilton attended Chicago's Martin Luther King High School, graduating in 1993...
and 7'0"
Rashard GriffithRashard Nathan Griffith is an American professional basketball player. Griffith, a native of Chicago, Illinois, starred for the nationally ranked King Jaguars of the Chicago Public League, where he was part of a "twin towers," as King, coached by Landon Cox, had 7'2" Thomas Hamilton and the 7'0"...
, who led the Jaguars to a state championship. All coached by outspoken Chicago legend Landon “Sonny” Cox. In 2009-2010, the Girls Swim team won the section championship for the second consecutive year and the Boys Basketball team, Girls Basketball team, and Wresting team won regional championships.
Activities
The King College Prep marching band represented Chicago at the Presidential Inaugural Heritage Music Festival in Washington D.C. where they came in second place in the competition and performed at an inaugural ball. The band won first place in the 2009 Chicago Football Classic. In 2008, they opened for Stone Temple Pilots at their Chicago concert.
Notable Alumni
- Michael Clark Duncan is an Academy Award–nominated actor (The Green Mile
The Green Mile is a 1999 American drama film directed by Frank Darabont and adapted by him from the 1996 Stephen King novel of the same name...
, Armageddon).
- Rashard Griffith
Rashard Nathan Griffith is an American professional basketball player. Griffith, a native of Chicago, Illinois, starred for the nationally ranked King Jaguars of the Chicago Public League, where he was part of a "twin towers," as King, coached by Landon Cox, had 7'2" Thomas Hamilton and the 7'0"...
is a former professional basketball player (1995–2004) who predominantly played in European basketball leagues.
- Thomas Hamilton
Thomas Thaddeus Hamilton is an American former NBA basketball player.-Pre-professional:Hamilton attended Chicago's Martin Luther King High School, graduating in 1993...
is a former NBA centerThe center, colloquially known as the five or the post, is one of the standard positions in a regulation basketball game. The center is normally the tallest player on the team, and often has a great deal of strength and body mass as well...
.
- Marcus Liberty
Marcus Liberty is a retired American professional basketball player.-High School:Liberty attended Chicago King High School from 1983 to 1987. During his time at King, Liberty led his basketball teams to an IHSA State Championship in 1986 and a second-place finish in 1987...
is a former NBA forward (1990–94), playing most of his career with the Denver NuggetsThe Denver Nuggets are a professional basketball team based in Denver, Colorado. They play in the National Basketball Association . They were founded as the Denver Rockets in 1967 as a charter franchise of the American Basketball Association, and became one of that league's more successful teams...
.
Notable Staff
- Landon "Sonny" Cox
Landon "Sonny" Cox is a Jazz alto saxophonist, born in Cincinnati, Ohio in 1938. His mother Helen Harris was a singer and performed with Erskine Hawkins. He first played with The Rocks a Cincinnati-based group that backed Jackie Wilson, Jerry Butler, Solomon Burke, Lavern Baker and other soul...
was a jazz saxophoneThe saxophone is a conical-bore transposing musical instrument that is a member of the woodwind family. Saxophones are usually made of brass and played with a single-reed mouthpiece similar to that of the clarinet. The saxophone was invented by the Belgian instrument maker Adolphe Sax in 1846...
player who served as the school's head boys basketball coach.