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Coretta Scott King: 1927-2006

Protector of legacy

An activist in her own right, she established the King Center in Atlanta and fought to make her husband's birthday a national holiday. Widowed in 1968, she reared four children alone.

By wire services
Published February 1, 2006

ATLANTA - Coretta Scott King, who worked to keep her husband's dream alive with a chin-held-high grace and serenity that made her a powerful symbol of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s creed of brotherhood and nonviolence, died Tuesday (Jan. 31, 2006). She was 78.

The "first lady of the civil rights movement" died in her sleep during the night at an alternative medicine clinic in Mexico, her family said. Arrangements were being made to fly the body back to Atlanta.

She had been recovering from a serious stroke and heart attack suffered last August. Just two weeks ago, she made her first public appearance in a year on the eve of her late husband's birthday.

Doctors at the clinic said Mrs. King was battling advanced ovarian cancer when she arrived there on Thursday. A statement released by her four children said: "She was considered terminal by physicians in the United States. She and the family wanted to explore other options." The doctors said the cause of death was respiratory failure.

News of her death led to tributes to Mrs. King across Atlanta, including a moment of silence in the Georgia Capitol and piles of flowers placed at the tomb of her slain husband. Flags at the King Center, the institute devoted to the civil rights leader's legacy, were lowered to half-staff.

"She wore her grief with grace. She exerted her leadership with dignity," said the Rev. Joseph Lowery, who helped found the Southern Christian Leadership Conference with Mrs. King's husband in 1957.

Former Atlanta Mayor Andrew Young, one of Martin Luther King's top aides, said Coretta Scott King's fortitude rivaled that of her husband's.

"She was strong if not stronger than he was," Young said.

Before she married King, the Alabama-born Coretta Scott had established herself as a politically and socially conscious young woman. Formally educated in Ohio and Boston, she was an antiwar activist who rallied her fellow students against violence and served as a delegate to a political convention. She was an accomplished classical singer.

During the civil rights movement, she marched alongside her husband and sang to raise money for the SCLC.

After her husband's death in 1968, Mrs. King emerged as an important activist in her own right. She founded the Martin Luther King Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change and led the fight to make her husband's birthday a national holiday. Yet she also was known as a loving mother who reared four children alone. She instilled in them a reverence for the ideals their father espoused, as well as an independence to chart their own courses, even if it challenged long-standing ideals of who or what they should be.

She became an international advocate for peace and human rights. She met with presidents and world leaders and was arrested fighting against apartheid. Well into her 70s, she traveled the globe to speak against racial and economic injustice, promote the rights of the powerless and poor, and advocate religious freedom, full employment, health care, educational opportunities, nuclear disarmament and AIDS awareness.

Despite her physical struggles, she made a surprise appearance earlier this month during the King Center's annual Salute to Greatness awards dinner in Atlanta. She smiled as she was brought into the ballroom of the Hyatt Regency hotel, triggering a standing ovation, but did not speak.

But for a public figure, she was an intensely private person. She picked her friends carefully and didn't venture out in public without being swamped by admirers.

That, said some who didn't know her, made her appear aloof, but friends say Mrs. King was warm, kind and considerate, someone who loved to laugh, never said a bad thing about anybody and spent hours talking on the phone late into the night.

Because of her status as a civil rights figure, she would receive dozens of calls from people traveling through Atlanta who wanted an audience with her.

Although she was one of the most recognizable women in the world, she still did her own grocery shopping and bought her pantsuits off the rack. After her coif was feathered and flipped during an Oprah TV show makeover in May 2003, she reverted to the traditional curls she had worn for decades.

Winfrey's friendship changed her life in her later years. In 2003, Mrs. King moved out of the Vine City home she had shared with her husband and into two 39th-floor condo units at Park Place in Buckhead, bought by Winfrey.

Before her stroke, Mrs. King normally began her day at 7 a.m. with prayer, meditation and exercise. She still was a regular on the speaking circuit, but in the months before her death, her engagements dwindled as her health declined.

To link Mrs. King's life to that of her husband's is inevitable, especially in light of the work she had done to protect, maintain and enhance his legacy. While his 1968 assassination brought an end to their marriage after only 15 years, Mrs. King never remarried and spent the last 38 years of her life creating her own legacy.

Immediately after her husband's death, she founded the King Center, eventually locating it in the neighborhood where he grew up.

She also worked for more than 15 years to get her husband's birthday established as a national holiday. Celebrated on the third Monday in January, King Day is the only national holiday honoring an individual American.

Coretta Scott was born April 27, 1927, in Marion, Ala., to Bernice McMurry Scott and Obadiah Scott, who farmed his own land and owned a truck, which he used to haul logs and timber for the local sawmill. Bernice Scott was a homemaker. Marion's rural setting exposed Coretta to the injustices of racism and segregation. Although her family was not poor, she joined hired hands picking cotton in the fields of rural Marion.

In 2005, Mrs. King's legendary drive and stamina started to wane. A heart condition slowed her down and led to at least three strokes. The last one, which struck her Aug. 16, severely weakened the right side of her body and left her unable to speak. Among her first words during recovery was "I love you," whenever she saw any of her children.

Even before she recovered her speech, she could do one of the things she truly loved: sing.

Survivors include her children; a sister, Edythe Bagley of Cheney, Pa., and a brother, Obie Scott of Tuscaloosa, Ala.

Information from the Associated Press, Cox News Service and Los Angeles Times was used in this report.

[Last modified February 1, 2006, 01:04:14]