Frank Haines
If you lived in Tallahassee in the late 90’s it was impossible not to know King Love. Almost everyday he posted himself at the busiest intersection in Tallahassee. He had a sizeable white beard and wore a red cape, golden crown, and a large golden Ankh around his neck. He always had a sign, which usually read, “Love is the Answer,” but he often displayed topical political signs as well. While he accepted donations from people stopped at the traffic light, panhandling was not the priority.
King Love was a true weirdo, my kind of people. He had a darkness that he carried with him. This darkness had crippled him at one point and forced him to have a radical lifestyle change. I don’t know the exact details, but at one point he was living a conventional life, married and working in the medical field, and then he left it all to become the homeless King Love.
King Love was an idealistic progressive, an embodied peace activist and a friend of mine. He was too often characterized as just a crazy homeless guy. But King Love was a well-read intellectual. He associated many of his viewpoints and life choices with Bertrand Russell, a philosopher most definitively dedicated to peace and human freedom. His message was one of peace and speaking truth to power (he used to throw messages over the wall of the Governor’s mansion via Styrofoam glider planes). He was doing all of this in the un-hospitable south, full of rednecks and half-brained cops.
I made this book to memorialize King Love and put information about him in one place. I imagine this to be an evolving project.