Coretta Scott King, first lady of civil rights, dies

The United States lost one of the last titans of the pioneer generation of the civil rights movement on Jan. 31 with the death of Coretta Scott King, the widow of Martin Luther King Jr. King, who was 78, had been in poor health since suffering a stroke last August. Known nearly universally as the first lady of the civil rights movement, she was also one of the last surviving figures from King's inner circle, and her death was seen as a historic passing. "It's a sorrowful day to those of us who knew them, and who worked with them and who tried to promulgate a better life for this country," the Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth, a co-founder with Martin Luther King of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. "She espoused what she and her husband, Martin Luther King, lived for: uplifting of the human race, non-violence in human affairs, love and so on. What Dr. King and his wife lived, or tried to live for, was the best that could happen in any generation." Coretta played an instrumental role as an activist, building support for the bus boycott in Montgomery, Alabama, and efforts to pass the civil rights act in 1964. After the reverend's assassination in 1968 left her a widow with four young children, King became a powerful symbol of her husband's struggle for peace and equal rights. She was a calm, steady presence at seminars and public meetings. She was also the guardian of his legacy, campaigning for more than a decade to have King's birthday observed as a national holiday. King worked hard to establish the multimillion-dollar Center for Nonviolent Social Change, which trains people in her husband's philosophy of non-violence. In 1974, she created a coalition of business, civil, labor and women's rights groups that campaigned for an equal employment policy. In 1985, she and three of her children were arrested in an anti-apartheid protest outside the South African embassy in Washington. Born in Marion, AL, Coretta Scott was awarded degrees in music and education from Antioch College, OH, and went on to study at the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston, where she met Martin Luther King Jr., who was pursuing a doctorate. The couple were married in 1953, and the next year moved to Montgomery, where King became pastor at Dexter Avenue Baptist Church. She is survived by her four children, Yolanda Denise King, Martin Luther King III, Dexter Scott King and the Reverend Bernice Albertine King.