Coretta Scott King

The wife of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was no stranger to the hardships of African Americans in the mid 1900s. She was born April 27, 1927, in Heiberger, Alabama. She was quickly exposed to the horrible effcets of segregation. She had to walk for five miles everyday to a one room school house, while her whites peers road buses to a bigger, much nicer school that was even closer in distance. Despite her obstacles, Corretta managed to succeed in the world of academia and graduated as valedictorian of Lincoln High School. She then went on to study music in Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio. There she received a BA in music and education. She was then offered a scholarship to attend The New England Conservatory of Music in Boston, MA. There she studied concert singing. This is where she met Martin Luther King, Jr. for the first time, as he was attending theology school. They fell in love and were married on June 18, 1953. Martin Luther King, Sr. married them.

Mrs. King then finished school and followed her husband to Alabama. There she was found side by side with her husband as an active memeber in the Civil Rights Movement. She and her first born child barely escaped death when their home was bombed in 1956. Because she had a degree in singing, Mrs. King put on what was called Freedom Concerts to raise awareness for the Civil Rights Movement, and this put her in the spot light. She was then ask to speak publicly all the time. She was the first woman to deliver the Class Day Address at Harvard and the first woman to preach at the St. Paul's Cathedral in London, England.

After her husband's tragic death she was determined more then ever to keep his dream, that he spoke so passionately about, alive. She created the Martin Luther King, Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change. She also began writing a book titled My Life with Martin Luther King, Jr. 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 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. In 1985 Mrs. King and three of her children were arrested at the South African embassy in Washington, D.C., for protesting against that country's apartheid system of racial segregation and disenfranchisement. Ten years later, she stood with Nelson Mandela in Johannesburg when he was sworn in as President of South Africa.

She kept MLK's dream alive and continued to inspire other people just as he had in the past.


"Coretta Scott King." Academy of Achievement. 2 May 2007 http://www.achievement.org/autodoc/page/kin1bio-1.