Coretta Scott King, guardian of civil rights icon's legacy, dies at 78

2 hours, 16 minutes ago

WASHINGTON (AFP) - Coretta Scott King, 78, who died late Monday, dedicated her life to furthering the legacy of her slain husband, civil rights legend Martin Luther King Junior, becoming a potent symbol of the struggle for racial equality in her own right.
Tributes poured in Tuesday for King, who in the decades following her husband's assassination continued to fight against racial injustice and spread his message of non-violence around the globe.

US Representative John Lewis (news, bio, voting record), a lawmaker from the southern state of Georgia which King called home, told CNN television on Tuesday that the death of the King family matriarch marked "a very sad time, and an extraordinary loss.

"She became the embodiment, or the personification, keeping the mission, the message, the philosophy, the discipline of nonviolence in the forefront," said Lewis.

"She was a believer, a true believer," said Lewis, himself a renowned champion of civil rights who supported the Kings during the famous Montgomery, Alabama, bus boycott and other key protests against segregation.

"She was not just the wife of Martin Luther King Jr., but she was a leader in her own right. And I don't think anyone in the short term is going to be able to fill her shoes," he said.

The King family expressed gratitude for the tributes that began pouring in early Tuesday as news of her death was made known.

"We appreciate the prayers and condolence from people across the country," the statement read.

Coretta Scott King carried on her husband's dream of equality between whites and blacks in the United States after the Nobel Peace Prize laureate was assassinated in 1968.

After his death, she created The King Center in Atlanta, Georgia, a memorial to the minister's legacy and a testament to the nonviolent movement.

The center said its receives more than 650,000 visitors each year. She turned over leadership of The King Center to one of her sons in 1995.

Mrs King also pushed in the 1980s for the creation of a national holiday honoring her husband, who advocated non-violence in his crusade to eradicate segregation in the US South. The holiday was established in 1986 and is now observed on the third Monday of January.

The widow was also vocal on international issues, opposing the US-led invasion of
Iraq in March 2003, and participating in protests in Washington against apartheid in South Africa in the 1980s.

She had been in frail health since August of last year, when she suffered a heart attack and stroke.

Born April 27, 1927 in segregated Alabama, Coretta Scott King grew up on a farm owned by her parents, who were poor but had big dreams for their three children.

Her father, Obediah Scott, was the first black man in the area to own a truck and then launched a truck-farming business, which drew harassment from their white neighbors.

Her mother, Bernice, frustrated that buses took only white children to school, rented a bus to transport the black children in the neighborhood to classes some 15 kilometers (nine miles) away.

In 1945, after graduating from high school, King followed her older sister Edyth to Antioch College in Ohio, where she earned a degree in music and elementary education. Her sister was the college's first full-time black student.

The singer-musician made her concert debut in 1948 in Springfield, Ohio, and went on to study at the New England Conservatory of Music in the northeastern city of Boston in 1951.

It was there that she met her future husband, who was a doctoral candidate at Boston University's theology school.

The pair married in 1953 during a ceremony conducted by Martin Luther King, Sr. who was a minister, and moved to Montgomery, Alabama.

Their first daughter was born a few days before Martin Luther King Jr. led a boycott to end the racial segregation of Montgomery's buses -- a watershed event in the civil rights movement.

That protest was launched after another future civil rights icon, Rosa Parks, refused to give up her seat to a white man in 1955. Parks died in October 2005 at the age of 92.

King raised the couple's four children, accompanied her husband to protests and spoke for him when he was unavailable. She was with him in 1963 when he delivered his famous "I Have a Dream" speech at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington. In 1964, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

After her husband's assassination in Memphis, Tennessee, on April 4, 1968, Coretta Scott King committed herself to preserving his legacy for future generations.

Only four days after his death, and on the eve of his funeral, she led a march that her husband was meant to lead in support of sanitation workers in Memphis.

"I would challenge you today to see that his spirit never dies," she said. "We are going to continue his work to make all people truly free."