Biography
American civil rights leader
with her famed husband, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. She survived many
traumatic events including a bombing of their home on January 30, 1956,
shortly after the birth of their first child, her husband’s stabbing two
years later, on September 20, 1958, and his 1968 assassination.
The middle of three children, King grew up in the segregated south. A
good student despite harsh conditions, she graduated high school as
valedictorian of her class. She earned a scholarship and attended
Antioch College in Ohio. There she joined the Antioch chapter of the
NAACP and became active in campus civil rights organizations. With a
B.A. in music and education, King won a scholarship to the New England
Conservatory of Music in Boston, MA. In January 1952, she met her future
husband, Martin Luther King, Jr., then a Ph.D. candidate. They married
on June 18, 1953 and she completed her advanced degree in voice and
violin. In September 1954 they moved to Montgomery, AL, where her
husband had obtained an assignment as Pastor of a Baptist Church. After
Rosa Parks’ arrest for refusing to give up her seat on a Montgomery City
bus, Martin Luther King, Jr. became a leader of the community protest
which began with a boycott of city buses. He formed the SCLC (Southern
Christian Leadership Conference) on February 14, 1957.
Coretta has said that her husband had rather traditional views of a
woman’s role and she was busy tending to their four children, Yolanda,
born November 17, 1955; Martin III, born October 23, 1957; Dexter born
on January 30, 1961, and Bernice, who arrived on March 28, 1963.
Nevertheless, she was an active supporter of his work. Putting her
musical talents to good use Coretta organized and performed in Freedom
Concerts which told the story of the Civil Rights movement. As her
husband’s fame grew, hers did as well and in the 1960s she found herself
in demand as a public speaker.
On April 4, 1968 her husband was shot and pronounced dead at 7:05 PM CST
in Memphis, TN. After his assassination, the grieving widow immediately
threw herself into his work. Within two days she led 42,000 in a march
of grief and protest. In January 1969 King formed a memorial Center for
Social Change in honor of her martyred husband and lobbied for years to
make his birthday a national holiday. Her autobiography was published
September 25, 1969, "My Life with Martin Luther King, Jr." Throughout
the next several decades she organized and inspired others on behalf of
peace, civil liberties, and justice. In a 1985 protest against
apartheid, she and three of her children were arrested at the South
African embassy in Washington, DC. Ten years later, in 1995 she was
witness to Nelson Mandela’s swearing-in ceremony when he became
President of South Africa.
On August 16, 2005, King suffered a major stroke. At least one report
claimed that she had previously suffered smaller, less-serious strokes.
In addition, she had been diagnosed with atrial fibrillation and ovarian
cancer. She was released from the hospital on September 22, 2005. In
January 2006, at age 78, King was admitted to an alternative health
clinic in Mexico. The venerable matriarch and activist died there on
January 30, 2006 at 8:25 PM PST according to her daughter Bernice who
was with her at the time. Religious, political, and activist figures
joined hundreds of supporters at a six-hour service in her honor. Her
eldest daughter Yolanda died at age 51 on May 15, 2007 of a reported
heart problem.
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