ATLANTA
Coretta Scott King, who toiled tirelessly in the civil rights movement and later to gain national recognition for her slain husband, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., died early Tuesday, Jan. 31. She was 78.
King never fully recovered from a stroke and heart attack last year. Though she was unable to speak or walk, she made her last public appearance earlier this month at an annual banquet to raise money for the Martin Luther King Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change. Family members said she died in her sleep.
Following her husband’s assassination in 1968, King devoted her life to carrying out the slain civil rights leader’s legacy. She lobbied for a decade to make her husband’s birthday a federal holiday, and in 1983 President Ronald Reagan signed the bill into law. Three years later, the nation observed the first King holiday.
She founded the King Center, a teaching facility, archive and museum, as a tribute to her husband’s work. Recently, the future of the financially struggling center has been in jeopardy as her four children fought publicly over whether it should be sold to the National Park Service or remain in the hands of the family.
King was born April 27, 1927 in Marion, Ala. Her father was a lumber worker and part-time barber. She once said she worked in the cotton fields all day on weekends so that she could stay late after school during the week to practice her music. She graduated from Antioch College in Ohio in 1951 with a degree in music.
A polished concert singer, King met her future husband while working on a graduate degree at the New England onservatory of Music in Boston. Martin Luther King, a budding young preacher, was a doctoral student at Boston University. They were married in Atlanta on June 18, 1953.
Though she lived for years in her husband’s shadow, King was an invigorating influence in the civil rights movement for more than half a century. When her husband could not attend an event, she stood in for him and spoke on his behalf. She was often seen marching beside him on the front, locked arm-in-arm, singing “We Shall Overcome.”
“She is Mrs. Martin Luther King but as Coretta Scott King, she created a niche for herself,” said the Rev. Joseph Lowery, who worked alongside King in the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.
Young said she never lost her faith in nonviolence.
“She was always very progressive. She took a stand on gay rights and AIDS and educated the community that it [AIDS] was not a moral punishment but a disease that needs to be addressed and cured,” Young said.
In her latter years, King was an outspoken critic of the Iraq war and supported many social causes, saying that her husband had died fighting for the rights of all people. She was seen as a quiet force, presiding over seminars and speaking publicly on global issues.
Though many saw her as the “first lady of the civil rights movement,” she was criticized by some who believed she abandoned her husband’s mission to improve life for the masses of poor and disadvantaged people. Some did not support the King Center early on, saying that the money raised to build the multi-million dollar center could have been better used on the poor.
Her goal, however, was to create a longstanding memorial that would address issues such as unemployment, voting rights and racism.
While others in the movement were still trying to sort out how to replace the slain martyr, King chose to focus her energy on preserving her late husband’s legacy
for generations. She had harsh words for those who tried to imitate her husband’s style, saying they were “stuck in emotional rhetoric.”
She is survived by her four children, Yolanda, Martin III, Dexter and Bernice.