Coretta Scott King was an American civil rights activist and the wife of 1960s civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. She devoted her life to the highest values of human dignity in service to social change.
Coretta was born in Alabama where she graduated valedictorian from Lincoln High School. She then attended Antioch College and gained a BA in music and education. While in school, she joined the NCAAP. She met Martin Luther King Jr when in Boston studying violin and voice at the New England Conservatory of Music. They married and moved to Montgomery, Alabama where he was a pastor and she remained passionately involved in activism while raising their 4 children and carrying out her duties as a pastors wife.
Coretta was actively involved in the organisation of marches and boycotts. She organised and performed at Freedom Concerts where she and other performers sang, read poetry and lectured on civil rights history to raise money for SCLC (Southern Christian Leadership Conference)
Coretta spoke out on behalf of racial and economic justice, women’s and children’s rights, gay and lesbian dignity, religious freedom, the needs of the poor and homeless, employment, health care, education, nuclear disarmament and environmental justice. She was frequently asked to give speeches and became the first women to deliver the class day address at Harvard.
Coretta and Martin Luther King Jr were involved in the Montgomery Bus Boycott of 1955 – Rosa Parks refused to give her seat to a white passenger and was arrested. An event which is said to have sparked the modern Civil Rights Movement. Black citizens organised in defense of Rosa Parks and boycotted the city’s buses which drew the attention of the world to the injustice of segregation in the United States. A court decision to striking down all local ordinances separating the races in public transit followed.
Dr. King’s advocacy for non violent civil disobedience made him the most recognisable face in the Civil Rights movement and he and Coretta lead marches in many cities to inspire citizens to flout the segregation laws. His recognisable face meant that Coretta and one of her children narrowly escaped with their lives when white supremacists bombed the family home in 1956.
Coretta and Dr. King journeyed to Ghana to mark its independence in 1957, traveled to India on a pilgrimage in 1959 and worked to pass the 1964 Civil Rights Act, among other civil-rights-related work. After Dr. King was assassinated Coretta continued to work for social change and established the The Martin Luther King, Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change as a living memorial to her husband’s life and dream. She also campaigned for 15 years to have Dr. King’s birthday instituted as a national holiday—President Ronald Reagan finally signed the bill in 1983, creating “Martin Luther King Day.”