Coretta Scott King has left us
Of the St. Louis American
Upon learning she had terminal cancer, Coretta Scott King faced her future with dignity and grace.
A woman who could have let herself be known solely for tragedy, but refused to shelter herself in sorrow, knew her time on Earth was limited.
Her final months were lived with dignity, and her final appearance was in the name of the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Center in Atlanta.
Ovarian cancer claimed Coretta Scott King on Monday night (January 30, 2006) in Mexico where she was seeking treatment for her illness.
Former state Rep. Betty L. Thompson, a close personal friend and one of the founding members of the St. Louis Martin Luther King Support Group, said, “She will be missed every single day. We’re all better people for having known her. She loved St. Louis.”
Coretta Scott King made her final appearance in the St. Louis area when she spoke at Principia College in 2004.
Thompson, who spoke at a memorial service for the late King on Wednesday night at Zion Travel Baptist Church, said, “Mrs. King carried on the work of the poor following the assassination of her husband, and she always gave a helping hand. She never worried about riches or material things. She just wanted to do the work with dignity.”
Thompson said, “She was an unassuming public figure with a big heart and unwavering passion for people.”
Norman R. Seay, founder of the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Holiday Committee in St. Louis, who was instrumental in naming the local street and bridge for Dr. King, remembered Mrs. King as a special and elegant individual.
“We have lost a grand lady and an influential and respected leader whose lifelong contribution to so many worthwhile cultural and civic causes has greatly enhanced the beauty and vibrancy of our world,” Seay said.
“I respected and admired her ability to carry on Dr. King’s legacy while raising four children, and I hope the children will promote and emulate the deeds of their parents.”
The Rev. Earl Nance Jr., whose father was a classmate at Morehouse College with Dr. King, met Coretta Scott King for the first time at the first inauguration of President Bill Clinton in Washington, D.C. in 1992.
“She was a woman of great strength who became a living reminder of Dr. King’s dream and his legacy,” Nance said.
“She still had that dignity, had a wonderful sense of humor and was always so gracious.”
“Coretta Scott King was a woman of uncommon valor and great dignity. As a partner to her late husband, Mrs. King was an essential part of the struggle,” said Congressman Wm. Lacy Clay.
“After his tragic death, her courage and leadership inspired millions of Americans to continue the mission of non-violent social change in the pursuit of justice, peace and equality. Our nation has lost one of its finest citizens.”
U.S. Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill) said, “When I think about Coretta Scott King, I think about the little girl who walked five miles to school on those rural Alabama roads and felt the heat of racism each day she passed the doors of the whites-only school so much closer to home.”
After King’s assassination in Memphis, Obama said, “She made the selfless decision to carry on. With no time to cry or mourn, to wallow in anger or vengeance, Coretta Scott King took to the streets just four days after the assassination and lead 50,000 through the streets of Memphis in a march for the kind of justice that her husband gave his life for.”
“We appreciate the prayers and condolences from people across the country,” the King family said in a statement. The family said she died overnight, but did not say where she died. She suffered a serious stroke and heart attack in 2005.
“It’s a bleak morning for me and for many people and yet it’s a great morning, because we have a chance to look at her and see what she did and who she was,” the poet Maya Angelou said Tuesday on ABC’s Good Morning America.
“It’s bleak because I can’t, many of us can’t hear her sweet voice, but it’s great because she did live, and she was ours. I mean African Americans and white Americans and Asians, Spanish-speaking – she belonged to us, and that’s a great thing.”
Former Atlanta Mayor Andrew Young, who praised Mrs. King in his keynote address on Jan. 7 at the Martin Luther King Celebration Kickoff event at Harris-Stowe State University, said, “Her spirit will remain with us just as her husband’s has.”
From opera to action
Coretta Scott was studying voice at the New England Conservatory of Music and planning on a singing career in opera when a friend introduced her to Martin Luther King, a young Baptist minister working toward a Ph.D. at Boston University.
They married in 1953 and the couple then moved to Montgomery, Ala., where King became pastor of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church and organized the famed Montgomery bus boycott in 1955.
The couple’s first child, Yolanda Denise, was born that same year. She was followed by Martin III, born in 1957; Dexter Scott, born in 1961; and Bernice Albertine, born in 1963.
Over the years, King was with her husband in his finest hours. She was at his side as he received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964. Sporting flat-heeled shoes, King marched beside her husband from Selma, Ala., into Montgomery in 1965 for the triumphal climax to his drive for a voting rights law.
Trained in music, she sang in many concerts and narrated civil rights history to raise money for the cause.
King was born April 27, 1927, in Perry County, Ala. Her father ran a country store. She once said that she was determined, even in girlhood, to do something positive for the cause of human rights. To help her family during the Depression, young Coretta picked cotton.
She left her home state in 1947, when she won a scholarship to Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio, and worked as a waitress to earn her way.
Rep. Melvin L. Watt (D-N.C.), chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus, said, “She was an inspiration to millions of people around the world who sought justice and equality. She had remained the carrier of the freedom flame. Mrs. King’s death marks the end of an era, but certainly not the end of the continued struggle that she was such an integral part of and that African Americans face daily for equity and parity in education, health care and employment security.”
Earl G. Graves Sr., founder and publisher of BLACK ENTERPRISE, said, “I witnessed first-hand Mrs. King’s courage and determination during one of our darkest times as a nation.
“Although marked by enormous heartbreak, Mrs. King was a pillar of strength and dignity. Her resolve to persist in our nation’s struggle for racial equality – despite overwhelming adversity – will serve as an inspiration for generations.”
Former President Jimmy Carter called her “a mainstay of the movement for nonviolent political change,” and former President Clinton said Mrs. King was “a giant in the fight for equal rights for all Americans.”
President Bush honored King in his State of the Union address Tuesday night as a “beloved, graceful, courageous” woman who he said carried on a “noble dream.”
She is survived by her four grown children, Dexter, Martin Luther III, Yolanda and Bernice. Flags flew at half-staff at government buildings in Georgia and other states including New Mexico and New York.
Gov. Matt Blunt has not seen fit to call for the same in Missouri.
The body of Coretta Scott King arrived in Atlanta early Wednesday and was escorted through the darkened streets to a funeral home in the southwest part of the city.
Four police cars escorted the hearse to the Willie A. Watkins Funeral Home, located on a street named for the Rev. Ralph David Abernathy, a former confidant of King’s husband.
Funeral arrangements had not been completed as of Wednesday evening.
