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Featured African American
Coretta Scott King
Coretta Scott King has become one of the most
influential women leaders in our world today.
As a young child, King walked five miles each day to
attend the one-room Crossroads School. When she was older, she
studied at Lincoln High School in Marion, nine miles away. Since
this was too far to walk, her mother hired a bus and drove all the
black students in the area to and from school .
Mrs. King graduated valedictorian from Lincoln
High School. She received a bachelor's degree in music and education
from Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio.
At Antioch College, King majored in music and
education. She also took part in the college's work-study program,
acting as a camp counsellor, library assistant, and nursery school
attendant. The fact that she was African American was not a barrier
in any of these roles, but when she began to teach as part of her
education course, she suddenly found her way blocked. Ordinarily,
the education students did their practice teaching in the local
public schools, but these schools had no black teachers and would
not accept her. Her protests fell on deaf ears, even when she
appealed to the college president, and in the end she had to do her
teaching at the Antioch Demonstration School.
Mrs.King sang in the choir at the Second
Baptist Church in Springfield, Ohio, and gave her first solo concert
there in 1948. By the time she graduated in 1951, she had decided to
become a professional singer rather than a schoolteacher and had
been accepted by the New England Conservatory of Music in
Boston.
While studying at the conservatory she met Martin
Luther King Jr., who was also a student in Boston at the time, and
they were married in 1953. The following year, after Coretta Scott
King had graduated from the conservatory, they moved to Montgomery,
Alabama, where Martin Luther King, Jr. began his work as a
minister.
She entered the world stage in 1955
as Dr. King's wife and as a leading participant in the American
Civil Rights Movement. Her remarkable partnership with Dr. King
resulted not only in four talented children but a life devoted to
the highest values of human dignity in service to social change.
After the assassination of
Reverand Dr. King in 1968, Coretta King carried on his work
and continued the struggle for the realization of his dreams.
Four days after the assassination of Reverned King she led a
march of some fifty thousand people through the streets of Memphis
and went on to take his place in the March to Washington.
In 1969 , Coretta Scott King
published the first volume of her autobiography, My Life with Martin
Luther King Jr. In the 1970s, Mrs. King maintained her husband's
commitment to the cause of economic justice. In 1974 she formed the
Full Employment Action Council, a broad coalition of over 100
religious, labor, business, civil and women's rights organizations
dedicated to a national policy of full employment and equal economic
opportunity; Mrs. King served as Co-Chair of the Council.
In 1981, The King Center, the first
institution built in memory of an African American leader, opened to
the public. The Center is housed in the Freedom Hall complex
encircling Dr. King's tomb in Atlanta, Georgia. It is part of a
23-acre national historic site that also includes Dr. King's
birthplace and the Ebenezer Baptist Church, where he and his father
both preached. The King Center Library and Archives houses the
largest collection of documents from the Civil Rights era. The
Center receives over one million visitors a year, and has trained
tens of thousands of students, teachers, community leaders and
administrators in Dr. King's philosophy and strategy of nonviolence
through seminars, workshops and training programs.
Mrs. King led the successful campaign
to establish Dr. King's birthday, January 15, as a national holiday
in the United States. By an Act of Congress, the first national
observance of the holiday took place in 1986.
After 27 years at the helm of The
King Center, Mrs. King turned over leadership of the Center to her
son, Dexter Scott King, in 1995. She has remained active in the
causes of racial and economic justice, and in recent years has
devoted much of her energy to AIDS education and curbing gun
violence.
On August 16th 2005
Coretta Scott King suffered a struck and a slight heart attack and
was hospitalized in Atlanta Georgia. The stroke was reportedly
brought on by a blood clot that traveled from her heart and lodged
in the left side of her brain. The stroke affected Mrs. King's
right side, as well as her speech.
Mrs.King has been recovering at home
since suffering a stroke and heart attack in August.
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