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Coretta Scott King

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Coretta Scott King

Coretta Scott King (April 27, 1927 – January 30, 2006) was the wife of the assassinated civil rights activist Martin Luther King, Jr. and a noted community leader in her own right.

Childhood

Coretta Scott King was born on a farm in Heiberger, Perry County, Alabama to Obadiah and Bernice McMurry Scott. Though her family owned the land, it was often a hard life. All the children had to pick cotton during the Great Depression to help the family make ends meet.

Graduating from Lincoln Normal School in Marion, Alabama at the top of her class in 1945, Scott went to Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio. After graduation she attended the New England Conservatory in Boston, where she met Martin Luther King Jr. (see ).

Adult Life

The Kings were married on June 18, 1953 on the lawn of her parents' house; the ceremony was performed by King's father. After earning a degree in voice and violin at the New England Conservatory, she moved with her husband to Montgomery, Alabama in September 1954 after he was named pastor of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church.

The Kings had four children:

All four children later followed in their parents' footsteps as civil rights activists.

Coretta Scott King received honorary degrees from many institutions including Princeton University and Bates College. She was a member of Alpha Kappa Alpha, a noted African-American women's sorority.

Civil Rights Movement

Just two weeks after the birth of King's first child, Rosa Parks was arrested on a Montgomery bus, helping spark what would develop into the modern civil rights movement. King's husband soon emerged as a major leader of the movement. The struggles that followed included a narrow escape from death on January 30, 1956. King and her daughter were home when a bomb exploded at the family's residence; her husband was speaking at Rev. Ralph Abernathy's First Baptist Church at the time.

Freedom Concerts

King later put together a series of Freedom Concerts, which combined poetry, narration and music both to highlight the movement and to raise funds for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.

In 1962, she served as a Women's Strike for Peace delegate to the 17-nation Disarmament Conference in Geneva, Switzerland. In addition, she preceded her husband by two years in opposing the Vietnam War, addressing a 1965 anti-war rally at Madison Square Garden in New York City, while also serving as a liaison to international peace and justice organizations.

Life after assassination of MLK

Martin Luther King Day

Coretta Scott King, along with Rosalynn Carter, Andrew Young, Jimmy Carter, and other civil rights leaders during a visit to Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, January 14, 1979.

Over the years, she was active in preserving the memory of her husband and in political issues. After her husband was assassinated in 1968, she began attending a commemorative service at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta to mark her husband's birth every January 15 and fought for years to make it a national holiday, a quest that was realized in 1986, when the first Martin Luther King Day was celebrated.

Coretta Scott King attended the state funeral of former President Lyndon Johnson, in 1973, as a very close friend of the former president, himself a contributor to civil rights. She was also present when President Ronald Reagan signed legislation establishing Martin Luther King Day.

Opposition to Apartheid

During the 1980s, King reaffirmed her long-standing opposition to apartheid, participating in a series of sit-in protests in Washington, D.C. that prompted nationwide demonstrations against South African racial policies.

In 1986, she traveled to South Africa and met with Winnie Mandela, while her husband Nelson Mandela was still a political prisoner on Robben Island. She declined invitations from Pik Botha and moderate Zulu chief Buthelezi (as per ]). Upon her return to the United States, she urged Reagan to approve sanctions against South Africa.

Other Issues

She was present at the first inauguration of George W. Bush in 2001.

King was vocal in her opposition to capital punishment and the 2003 invasion of Iraq, thus drawing criticism from conservative groups. She was also an advocate of women's rights, lesbian and gay rights and AIDS/HIV prevention. Her support for gay and lesbian rights, including same-sex marriage, sometimes put her in conflict with some members of her family including her daughter Bernice and her niece Alveda King.

King called her adoption of a vegan diet in 1995 a blessing. Her son, Dexter, had been vegan since 1988, saying that an appreciation for animal rights is the "logical extension" of his father's philosophy of non-violence. Dick Gregory and Richard Pryor made similar connections between the civil rights movement and animal issues.

Coretta Scott King Award

The Coretta Scott King Award, a medal presented by the American Library Association, is awarded to African American writers and illustrators for outstanding and inspirational educational contributions in children's literature.

The King Center

Established in 1968 by King, The King Center is the official memorial dedicated to the advancement of the legacy and ideas of Martin Luther King, Jr., leader of a nonviolent movement for justice, equality and peace.

Mission

As the institutional guardian of Dr. King's legacy, the King Center, in collaboration with other organizations, focuses on the following areas:

  • The development and dissemination of programs that educate the world about Dr. King’s philosophy and methods of nonviolence, human relations, service to mankind, and related ideas;
  • Building a national and international network of organizations that, through sanctioned programs, promote, compliment, and help further the organization’s mission and objectives of building the Beloved Community that Dr. King envisioned
  • Functioning as the clearinghouse for non-profit organizations and government agencies which utilize Dr. King’s image and writings for programs and ensuring that the programs are historically and interpretively accurate;
  • Monitoring and reporting on the impact of Dr. King’s legacy on the world.

Programs & Services

The King Center has a wide variety of programs and services in place to fulfill the organization's mission of building Dr. King's "Beloved Community."

These programs and services include:

  • The Beloved Community Network
  • Nonviolence or Nonexistence Online Learning Program
  • Re-Ignite the Dream Campaign: Building the Beloved Community through Service
  • King and the Modern Civil Rights Museum Scholar and Historian Research Program
  • The King Papers Project
  • Education through Exploration Visitor Services Program
  • Annual Martin Luther King, Jr. Holiday Service Summit

Final days

On August 16 2005, King was hospitalized after suffering a stroke and a mild heart attack. Initially, she was unable to speak or move her right side. She was released from Piedmont Hospital in Atlanta on September 22, 2005, after regaining some of her speech and continued physiotherapy at home. Because of complications from the stroke, she was apparently unable to make her wishes known regarding the ongoing debate as to whether of the King Center would continue to operate independently or be sold to the National Park Service . On January 14 2006, Mrs. King made her last public appearance in Atlanta at a dinner honoring her husband's memory.

Death

Mrs. King died in the late evening of January 30, 2006 at a rehabilitation center in Rosarito Beach, Mexico, where she was undergoing holistic therapy for her stroke and advanced stage ovarian cancer. The King family maintains that Scott King died on the night of January 30, 2006, the very same day Mahatma Gandhi died. The main cause of death is believed to be respiratory failure.

The King children chose to not have King's funeral service at Ebenezer Baptist Church where their mother had been a member since the early 1960s, former first lady, Board of Trustees member up to her death, and the site of Martin Luther King, Jr.'s funeral in 1968. Scott King's funeral will be on Tuesday, February 7 at the New Birth Missionary Baptist Church in Lithonia, Georgia because this facility has a larger seating capacity. Bernice King is an elder at New Birth. It is expected that Presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton, and talk show host Oprah Winfrey will be in attendance. There is also news circulating that anti-gay protestor Fred Phelps has scheduled an appearance to protest Scott King's support of gay rights .

Mrs. King will be buried in a temporary crypt on the grounds of the King Center until a permanent place next to her husband's remains can be built. She had expressed to family members and others that she wanted her remains to lie next to her husband's at the King Center. However, the crypt there was only built to house one set of remains.

Tributes

President George W. Bush opened his State of the Union address the night of January 31 by paying tribute to her.

Mrs. King's body was returned to Atlanta, where she became the first woman to lie in state at the Georgia State Capitol; her body will also lie in state at historic Ebenezer Baptist Church (where her husband was pastor).

The beginning of Super Bowl XL was marked by a moment of silence in memory of Scott King and Rosa Parks.

Senate Resolution 362

Upon the news of her death, moments of reflection, remembrance, and mourning began around the world. In the United States Senate, Bill Frist presented Senate Resolution 362 on behalf all U.S. Senators, with the afternoon hours filled with respectful tributes throughout the U. S. Capitol. The Senate Resolution 362 as it appears in The Congressional Record can be found here.

House Resolution 655

On January 31, 2006 following a moment of silence in memoriam to the death of King, the United States House of Representatives presented House Resolution 655 in honor of Mrs. King's legacy. The remembrances that followed were both emotional and poignant. John Lewis (D-Georgia) stated:

I first met Mrs. King in 1957 when I was only 17. I was a student in Nashville, Tennessee. She was traveling around America, especially in cities of the South telling the story of the Montgomery movement through song. She was so beautiful, so inspiring, she would sing a little, and she would talk a little, and through her singing and talks she inspired an entire generation.

In an unusual action, the resolution included a grace period of five days in which further comments may be added to it.

Notes

External links

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