posted on January 31, 2006 05:02:29 AM
ATLANTA (Reuters) - Coretta Scott King, who surged to the forefront of the fight for racial equality after her husband Martin Luther King Jr. was murdered in 1968, has died at age 78, U.S. media reported on Tuesday.
She had suffered a stroke and a heart attack in August.
Coretta Scott King played a major back-up role in the civil rights movement until the death of her husband, Martin Luther King, who was assassinated on a Memphis motel balcony on April 4, 1968, while supporting a sanitation workers strike.
Mrs. King, who was in Atlanta at the time, learned of her husband's shooting in a telephone call from Rev.
Jesse Jackson, a call she later wrote, "I seemed subconsciously to have been waiting for all of our lives."
As she recalled in her autobiography "My Life With Martin Luther King Jr.," she felt she had to step fully into the civil rights movement.
"Because his task was not finished, I felt that I must rededicate myself to the completion of his work," she said.
Determined to make sure Americans did not forget her husband or his dream of a color-blind society, she created a memorial and a forum in the Martin Luther King Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change in Atlanta. The center has archives containing more than 2,000 King speeches and is built around the King crypt and its eternal flame.
Cheryl
"Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter." - Martin Luther King, Jr.
posted on January 31, 2006 07:17:39 AM
Condolences to family, friends and all that held her in esteem.
Amen,
Reverend Colin http://www.reverendcolin.com
Coretta Scott King did a fantastic job of carrying on the fight for civil rights that her husband, Martin Luther King defined in his great speech, "I Have a Dream". She will be remembered as a great and noble woman.
posted on January 31, 2006 08:40:59 AM
I was really saddened by the news. Who is there now to carry on his work, but his children? I really haven't heard about anyone as vocal as her in the continuing fight for civil rights. First Rosa Parks, now Coretta Scott King. There are not many woman as important to a movement as these two were anymore. She was a great lady and will be missed by many.
Cheryl
"Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter." - Martin Luther King, Jr.
