Coretta Scott King, 78, Dies

Professur

Professur

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By ERRIN HAINES
Associated Press Writer

ATLANTA — Coretta Scott King, who turned a life shattered by her husband's assassination into one devoted to enshrining his legacy of human rights and equality, has died, former mayor Andrew Young told NBC Tuesday morning. She was 78.

Young, who was a former civil rights activist and was close to the King family, broke the news during a phone call he made to the "Today" show. "I was not expecting it. She has been ill for last few months. My first reaction was she was ready to cross on over."


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Coretta Scott King, widow of slain civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., is seen at her home in Atlanta, Ga., in this May 28, 1968 file photo. Coretta Scott King, who turned a life shattered by her husband's assassination into one devoted to enshrining his legacy of human rights and equality, has died, former mayor Andrew Young told NBC Tuesday morning, Jan. 31, 2006. She was 78. (AP Photo)
Asked how he found out about her death, Young said: "I understand she was asleep last night and her daughter tried to wake her up."

Efforts by The Associated Press to reach the family were unsuccessful. They did not immediately return phone calls, but flags at the King Center were lowered to half-staff Tuesday morning.

King suffered a serious stroke and heart attack in 2005.

She was a supportive lieutenant to her husband, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., during the most tumultuous days of the American civil rights movement. She had married him in 1953.

After her husband's assassination in Memphis, Tenn., on April 4, 1968, she kept his dream alive while also raising their four children.

She worked to keep his ideology of equality for all people at the forefront of the nation's agenda. She goaded and pulled for more than a decade to have her husband's birthday observed as a national holiday, then watched with pride in 1983 as President Reagan signed the bill into law. The first federal holiday was celebrated in 1986.

King became a symbol, in her own right, of her husband's struggle for peace and brotherhood, presiding with a quiet, steady, stoic presence over seminars and conferences on global issues.

"I'm more determined than ever that my husband's dream will become a reality," King said soon after his slaying, a demonstration of the strong will that lay beneath the placid calm and dignity of her character.

She was devoted to her children and considered them her first responsibility. But she also wrote a book, "My Life With Martin Luther King Jr.," and, in 1969, founded the multimillion-dollar Martin Luther King Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change.

King saw to it that the center became deeply involved with the issues she said breed violence — hunger, unemployment, voting rights and racism.

"The center enables us to go out and struggle against the evils in our society," she often said.

After her stroke, King missed the annual King holiday celebration in Atlanta in January 2006, but she did appear with her children at an awards dinner a couple of days earlier, smiling from her wheelchair but not speaking. The crowd gave her a standing ovation.

At the same time, the King Center's board of directors was considering selling the site to the National Park Service to let the family focus less on grounds maintenance and more on King's message. But two of the four children were strongly against such a move.

Coretta Scott was studying voice at the New England Conservatory of Music and planning on a singing career when a friend introduced her to Martin Luther King, a young Baptist minister working toward a Ph.D. at Boston University.

"She said she wanted me to meet a very promising young minister from Atlanta," King once said, adding with a laugh, "I wasn't interested in meeting a young minister at that time."
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Source
 
Such classlessness

KING FUNERAL TURNS POLITICAL: BUSH BASHED BY FORMER PRESIDENT, REVEREND
Tue Feb 07 2006 15:49:48 ET

Today's memorial service for civil rights activist Coretta Scott King -- billed as a "celebration" of her life -- turned suddenly political as one former president took a swipe at the current president, who was also lashed by an outspoken black pastor!

The outspoken Rev. Joseph Lowery, co-founder of Southern Christian Leadership Conference, ripped into President Bush during his short speech, ostensibly about the wife of Martin Luther King Jr.

"She extended Martin's message against poverty, racism and war. She deplored the terror inflicted by our smart bombs on missions way afar. We know now that there were no weapons of mass destruction over there," Lowery said.

The mostly black crowd applauded, then rose to its feet and cheered in a two-minute-long standing ovation.

A closed-circuit television in the mega-church outside Atlanta showed the president smiling uncomfortably.

"But Coretta knew, and we know," Lowery continued, "That there are weapons of misdirection right down here," he said, nodding his head toward the row of presidents past and present. "For war, billions more, but no more for the poor!" The crowd again cheered wildly.

Former President Jimmy Carter later swung at Bush as well, not once but twice. As he talked about the Kings, he said: "It was difficult for them then personally with the civil liberties of both husband and wife violated as they became the target of secret government wiretaps." The crowd cheered as Bush, under fire for a secret wiretapping program he ordered after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, again smiled weakly.

Later, Carter said Hurricane Katrina showed that all are not yet equal in America. Some black leaders have blamed Bush for the poor federal response, and rapper Kayne West said that Bush "hates" black people.

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I would have half expected Joe Lowery to wheel about and start stabbing Bush and go out in a hail of Secret Service bullets. The room was utterly against him; I have no idea why he even bothered to show. He should have just sent Condi and been done with it. It was a lose-lose situation.
 
It's just another case of EVERY situation is an anti-Bush situation. The Dems can't let it go.
 
We had a president who was busted banging interns in the Oval Office, selling secrets to Chinese communists, and a myriad of other scandals.

We have a president of a different party affiliation who has to follow that mess. While far from perfect, and not the man I thought him to be (not to mention the fact that he is nowhere NEAR the man his father is), he manages to keep his pants on, has yet to tie up a major airport for a haircut, and has somehow avoided the enormous temptation to sell us out to our enemies. The previously mentioned wounded party feels compelled to create scandal, even if none exists. Hence, a hurricane, a cartoon drawn half a world away, and every other conceivable problem become the president's fault.

Will we ever run out of mud to sling?

I say we find someone off the streets of ___________ (insert any American town with population under 50,000) who has never filed bankruptcy, divorce, or frivolous lawsuit over hot coffee and elect him/her in '08. We can't do much worse than we have been.
 
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