Coretta Scott King

"Who was Coretta Scott King?

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

Scott King was born on a farm in Heiberger, in Perry County, Alabama to Obadiah (Obie) 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 moved to Boston, Massachusetts where she met Martin Luther King Jr.

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

King and Scott had four children:
* Yolanda Denise King (November 17, 1955, Montgomery, Alabama)
* Martin Luther King III (October 23, 1957, Montgomery, Alabama)
* Dexter Scott King (January 30, 1961, Atlanta, Georgia)
* Bernice Albertine King (March 28, 1963, Atlanta, Georgia)

All the four children later followed their father’s footsteps as civil rights activists.

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 her first child, Rosa Parks was arrested on a Montgomery bus, helping spark what would develop into the modern civil rights movement that would be led by her husband. The struggles that followed included a narrow escape from death on January 30, 1956. Scott 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
Scott King later put together a series of Freedom Concerts, that combined poetry, narration and music to highlight the movement and also 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.

Perhaps most notably, 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
Over the years, she was active in preserving the memory of her husband, and in other 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.

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, Scott King reaffirmed her long-standing opposition to apartheid, participating in a series of sit-in protests in Washington 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. 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, but 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.

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.

End of life
On August 16, 2005, Scott 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 her late husband’s birthplace should continue to be maintained by the city of Atlanta or 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.

She died in her sleep at approximately 8:30 PM local time (11:30 PM EST) on January 30, 2006 at a rehabilitation center in Rosarito Beach, Mexico, where she was undergoing holistic therapy for her stroke. Her body will be returned to Atlanta and buried next to her husband at The King Center."

Copyright Wikipedia


http://www.thekingcenter.org/csk/bio.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coretta_Scott_King
http://www.achievement.org/autodoc/page/kin1bio-1