King, Coretta Scott (1927–2006)

The third of four children, Coretta Scott King was born on April 27, 1927, in Heiberger, Alabama. Unlike her husband, the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Coretta Scott King knew poverty and segregation firsthand. Her maternal grandfather was born a slave, and her father was regularly harassed by his white neighbors because of his industry and success. Her mother worked at a variety of jobs to help her husband support the family. Scott King walked four miles daily to the segregated Crossroads School, and by the age of 10 was working in the cotton fields.

Her parents were active in a variety of capacities at the Mount Tabor AME Zion church, where Scott King sang and directed the youth choirs. She earned a scholarship to Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio, and began studying early childhood education. While there she belonged to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and the Race Relations and Civil Liberties Committee. She changed her major to music after hearing actor, singer, and human rights advocate Paul Robeson sing; he convinced her that music combined with social activism could be powerful tools for social change.

It was in 1952, while on a fellowship at the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston, that she met the charismatic Martin Luther King, Jr., who was studying for a doctoral degree. They married in 1953 and moved to Montgomery, Alabama, where King was a pastor at Dexter Avenue Church. With her husband she was actively involved in the work of ensuring social justice while rearing their four children. Early on she organized and performed in so-called Freedom Concerts to raise money and awareness for civil rights work being performed by the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.

On April 4, 1968, Dr. King was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee, where he had gone to support striking refuse workers. The day before his funeral, Scott King and their three older children led the march he had planned to attend. She also led the mourning for him with preternatural poise, walking with family, friends, and colleagues for miles behind the mule-drawn wagon that carried King's body to his burial site

After her husband's death, Scott King became an effective and passionate civil rights leader in her own right, both at home and abroad, fighting for a variety of causes including nonviolent social change, a guaranteed minimum wage, women's rights, and other peace and justice issues. She ensured King's legacy by developing and building the Martin Luther King, Jr., Center for Nonviolent Social Change. She also led a long and ultimately successful drive to establish her husband's birthday as a federal holiday, the first such holiday to honor an African American.

Scott King, who had suffered a heart attack and mild stroke in the autumn of 2005, died on January 30, 2006, from ovarian cancer. President George W. Bush ordered the flags on federal buildings flown at half staff in her honor, and she was the first woman and first African American to lie in repose in the Georgia state capitol building, an honor denied her husband upon his death. President George W. Bush; former Presidents Carter, George H. W. Bush, and Bill Clinton; and dignitaries from all walk of life and from all over the world attended her funeral.

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