Coretta Scott King

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{{Infobox_Biography |subject_name= Coretta Scott King |image_name= Corettascottking.jpg|180px |image_caption= |dead= dead |date_of_birth= April 27 1927 |place_of_birth= Heiberger, Alabama, USA |date_of_death= January 30 2006 |place_of_death= Playas de Rosarito, Mexico}}

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.

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Childhood

Coretta Scott was born on a farm in Heiberger, Alabama. Her parents were 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 won a scholarship to the New England Conservatory of Music to study concert singing in Boston, where she met Martin Luther King Jr. [1]

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Adult life

The Kings were married on June 18, on the lawn of her parents' house; the ceremony was performed by King's father. After completing her 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, Duke University, and Bates College. She was a member of Alpha Kappa Alpha, a noted African-American sorority.

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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 the bomb exploded at the family's residence; her husband was speaking at Ralph Abernathy's First Baptist Church at the time.

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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.

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Life after assassination of Martin Luther King

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Martin Luther King Day

Image:Coretta scott king ebenezer.jpg 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 Lyndon B. 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.

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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 Mandela's husband Nelson Mandela was still a political prisoner on Robben Island (Carson 2006, Wiltz 2006). She declined invitations from Pik Botha and moderate Zulu chief Buthelezi [2]. Upon her return to the United States, she urged Reagan to approve sanctions against South Africa.§

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Other issues

A long-time advocate for world peace, in 1957, King was one of the founders of The Committee for a Sane Nuclear Policy.

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.

  • "I still hear people say that I should not be talking about the rights of lesbian and gay people.... But I hasten to remind them that Martin Luther King Jr. said, 'Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.' I appeal to everyone who believes in Martin Luther King Jr.'s dream to make room at the table of brother and sisterhood for lesbian and gay people".

Image:Kingbush1.JPG

  • "Gay and lesbian people have families, and their families should have legal protection, whether by marriage or civil union. A constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriages is a form of gay bashing, and it would do nothing at all to protect traditional marriages."

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.

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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.

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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. [3]

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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, complement, 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. [4]
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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." [5]

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
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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 [6]. On January 14 2006, Mrs. King made her last public appearance in Atlanta at a dinner honoring her husband's memory.

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Death

Mrs. King died in the late evening of January 30, 2006 [7] at a rehabilitation center in Rosarito Beach, Mexico, where she was undergoing holistic therapy for her stroke and advanced stage ovarian cancer. The main cause of death is believed to be respiratory failure.[8]

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Funeral

Over 14,000 people gathered for King's six-hour funeral at the New Birth Missionary Baptist Church in Lithonia, Georgia on February 7, 2006 where daughter Bernice King is an elder. The megachurch whose sanctuary seats 10,000 was better able to handle the expected massive crowds than Ebenezer Baptist Church where King had been a member since the early 1960s up to her death and which was the site of Martin Luther King, Jr.'s funeral in 1968. Presidents George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George H.W. Bush and Jimmy Carter, their wives, with the exception of Barbara Bush, and numerous other political figures attended the service. In addition to the presidents, speakers included former FBI director William Sessions, chairwoman of the National Council of Negro Women Dorothy Height, poet Maya Angelou, Oprah Winfrey, Dr. Joseph Lowery, Atlanta mayor Shirley Franklin, Attallah Shabazz (daughter of Malcolm X), Bishop T.D. Jakes, and former Ambassador Andrew Young. Music was provided by the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, the Morehouse and Spelman College Glee Clubs, and vocalists Stevie Wonder, Michael Bolton, BeBe Winans, and CeCe Winans. Bernice King delivered the final official eulogy with Dr. Robert Schuller providing the closing benediction.

Some conservatives expressed dissatisfaction with remarks made by several of the speakers, including President Carter and Rev. Lowery, who were accused of injecting current politics into the affair. Lowery, referencing King's vocal opposition to the Iraq war, noted the failure to find WMDs in Iraq. Carter, referencing King's lifelong struggle for civil rights, noted that her family had been the target of secret government wiretapping. Their comments were met with thunderous applause and standing ovations. [9]

King's funeral was protested by Fred Phelps' Westboro Baptist Church, which is infamous for protesting the funerals of gay men and their supporters. [10]

Mrs. King will be buried in a temporary mausoleum on the grounds of the King Center until a permanent place next to her husband's remains can be built.[11] 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 mausoleum there was only built for a single interment. [12]

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Tributes

President George W. Bush opened his State of the Union address the night of January 31, 2006, by paying tribute to her. On February 6, Bush issued a proclamation [13] flags to be flown at half staff throughout the day of King's interment, February 7.

King's body was returned to Atlanta and carried through the streets on a horse-drawn carriage to the Georgia State Capitol as the crowd threw roses at the casket and a lone bagpiper played "Amazing Grace"; King became the first woman and black person to lie in state at the Georgia State Capitol. (see [14]). King's body also lay 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 King and Rosa Parks.

The National Gay and Lesbian Task Force issued a press release honoring the memory of the late Mrs. King. "Mrs. King worked tirelessly after her husband's death in 1968 to carry on his legacy of social justice activism. She was a steadfast ally in the struggle for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) rights, and was honored by the Task Force in 1997 for her support of the cause. In addition, Mrs. King was a featured speaker at the Task Force's Creating Change 2000, where she rallied hundreds of activists gathered for the country's largest LGBT rights organizing conference. In 2003, her son, Martin Luther King III, was personally responsible for inviting Task Force Executive Director Matt Foreman to join Mrs. King to speak from the podium at the 40th anniversary of the 1963 Civil Rights March on Washington." [15]

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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.

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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.

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Criticism

Mrs. King was not without her detractors, particular concerning the King family's handling of her husband's estate. The licensing of Martin Luther King's speeches has caused concern about the reasoning behind limiting their availability. Mrs. King was also involved in the decision to demand licensing fees before the government could build the Martin Luther King, Jr. National Memorial on the National Mall,

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Notes

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External links

Template:Wikiquote 

 |first=Teresa
 |last=Wiltz
 |page=C01
 |title=Coretta Scott King, the Woman Who Stood Alone
 |date=February 1, 2006
 |publisher=Washington Post
 |url=http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/31/AR2006013101681.html

}}

{{Persondata |NAME=King, Coretta Scott |ALTERNATIVE NAMES=King, Coretta; Scott, Coretta |SHORT DESCRIPTION=civil rights figure |DATE OF BIRTH=April 27, 1927 |PLACE OF BIRTH=near Marion, Alabama, United States of America |DATE OF DEATH=January 30, 2006 |PLACE OF DEATH=Rosarito Beach, Mexico }}

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