January 31st, 2006
The widow of Martin Luther King Jr. died last night at the age of 78.
Flags at the King Center have been lowered to half-staff in memory of the widow of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
Former Atlanta mayor Andrew Young says one of Mrs. King’s daughters tried to wake her mother and found she had passed away.
“She will go down as a great leader in her own right,” said Georgia State Senator Tyronne Brooks.
“We shouldn’t be sad, she’s gone on to heaven now. She’s gone on to be with Martin,” added Brooks, a longtime family friend. [...]
King suffered a serious stroke and heart attack in 2005.
She was a supportive lieutenant to her husband, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., during the most tumultuous days of the American civil rights movement. She had married him in 1953.
After her husband’s assassination in Memphis, Tenn., on April 4, 1968, she kept his dream alive while also raising their four children.
She worked to keep his ideology of equality for all people at the forefront of the nation’s agenda. She goaded and pulled for more than a decade to have her husband’s birthday observed as a national holiday, then watched with pride in 1983 as President Reagan signed the bill into law. The first federal holiday was celebrated in 1986.
King became a symbol, in her own right, of her husband’s struggle for peace and brotherhood, presiding with a quiet, steady, stoic presence over seminars and conferences on global issues.
“I’m more determined than ever that my husband’s dream will become a reality,” King said soon after his slaying, a demonstration of the strong will that lay beneath the placid calm and dignity of her character.
She was devoted to her children and considered them her first responsibility. But she also wrote a book, “My Life With Martin Luther King Jr.,” and, in 1969, founded the multimillion-dollar Martin Luther King Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change.
Thoughts and prayers go out to the King family.
Related: La Shawn Barber comments:
Regardless of [MLK's] legacy and politics, Coretta seemed to be the ultimate long-suffering widow and mother, raising four children alone after her husband was slain by James Earl Ray or whoever conspiracy theorists think did it. I’m sure she’s had to deal with hucksters of all sorts through the years: people trying to attach themselves to her, using her and King’s name for their own gain.
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Filed under Headlines | Comments (4)
Coretta Scott King, 1927-2006…
Martin Luther King’s legacy has taken on mythic status. Both Democrats and Republicans claim him as their own, trying to “out-King” each other every year on his birthday.
Then there are the detractors who insist that King’s l…
*sigh* another wonderful person – gone. I hope to see many like her follow in her footsteps. Coretta Scott King was, as LaShawn said using different words than I’m about to use, the archetypal resilient matriarch. She, like Rosa Parks, is an inspiration to us all.
King’s Body Arrives in Atlanta…
The body of Coretta Scott King arrived in her hometown early Wednesday and was escorted through the …
She was a class act. She got things done but was never “in your face” with it. She could have been in the media every day wearing widow’s weeds moaning and groaning but she handled hereself with such grace. A true southern lady. All I could think about yesterday was that finally…she and Dr. King were together. I just found your blog and plan to visit often!