Coretta Scott King, who for three decades stood in the place of her slain husband, Martin Luther King Jr., as a bright flame and firm voice of racial justice, died Monday night, her family announced Tuesday.
King, 78, who lived in Atlanta, suffered a stroke in August but had made a brief public appearance on television Jan. 16, during a celebration of Martin Luther King Day. It was unclear immediately where she died.
Norman R. Seay, founder of the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. holiday committee in St. Louis and civil rights activist, and the person who was instrumental in naming the street and bridge for the slain civil rights martyr, remembers Mrs. King as a special and elegant individual.
Seay, president of the Federation of Block Units, said “her death causes us to pause and reflect as to where we are now and where are we headed as a people.”
“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. 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.”
“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,” poet Maya Angelou said on ABC’s Good Morning America.
“She was a sister-friend to me, She was a great wife, obviously, and a wonderful mother and a great woman, a great American. When I think of great Americans she’s one of the people I think of,” Angelou said.
Rep. Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.), said, “Her loss is shocking not just to the civil rights movement but to progressives throughout the country and the world.”
“We will miss her,” he told the Associated Press. “But she certainly picked up the baton when it was dropped by her husband’s assassination and continued to move forward in the civil rights arena.”