[r.i.p. coretta scott king 1927-2006] Options

[*Statistik*]

The woman who kept the dream alive

First lady of civil rights is dead at 78

By CORKY SIEMASZKO
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER

Coretta Scott King, who selflessly carried on her husband's fight for racial equality from the day he was assassinated in 1968, has died at age 78. She suffered a debilitating stroke in August, and a family spokesman revealed yesterday that the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s brave widow was suffering with terminal ovarian cancer and seeking alternative treatment at a controversial clinic in Mexico.

"Today our nation lost a beloved, graceful, courageous woman who called America to its founding ideals and carried on a noble dream," President Bush said in paying tribute to the first lady of the civil rights movement in his State of the Union address last night.

"We are comforted by the hope of a glad reunion with the husband who was taken from her so long ago, and we are grateful for the good life of Coretta Scott King," Bush said.

After her husband was gunned down in 1968, King declared: "I'm more determined than ever that my husband's dream will become a reality."

And for nearly four decades years, that's exactly what she did.

She worked steadily to bridge the racial divide so the U.S. could become the nation that Dr. King envisioned - where people are not "judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character."

Coretta Scott King became the chief defender of her husband's legacy and the prime mover behind the drive to make the Rev. King's birthday a national holiday, first celebrated in 1986.

In the process, she emerged from her husband's huge shadow and became a civil rights icon in her own right.

"She wore her grief with grace; she exerted her leadership with dignity," the Rev. Joseph Lowery, a co-founder of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, said.

Coretta King also reportedly died with dignity - of respiratory failure - at a controversial holistic clinic in Mexico.

"She was considered terminal by physicians in the United States. She and the family wanted to explore other options," a spokeswoman said.

She only checked in last Thursday and her daughters, Bernice and Yolanda, were with her when she died late Monday night.

"She lived a graceful and beautiful life, and in spite of all of the difficulties, she managed a graceful and beautiful passing," former Atlanta Mayor Andrew Young told NBC's "Today" show.

Born April 27, 1927, in rural Alabama, King picked cotton as a child and waited tables to make ends meet while she studied music at the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston.

In 1951, a pal introduced her to a dashing young Baptist minister studying at Boston University named Martin Luther King. He was smitten instantly.

"You know, you have everything I ever wanted in a woman," the future civil rights leader said on their first date. "We ought to get married someday."

Eighteen months later they did. Two years after that, they moved to Montgomery, Ala., where a historic bus boycott sparked by the defiance of another recently deceased civil rights icon - Rosa Parks - propelled them to the forefront of a historic struggle for America's soul.

King was by her husband's side during his greatest triumphs - when he received the Nobel Peace prize in 1964, and on the voters' rights march from Selma, Ala., to Montgomery in 1965.

She was not with him when sniper James Earl Ray took his life in Memphis, but her heartbreak did not keep her from marching days later.

"I think you rise to the occasion in a crisis," she said after she and her four children marched with thousands of mourners through the city. "God was using us - and now he's using me, too."

In 1969, King founded The King Center for nonviolent Social change in Atlanta as a tribute to her husband and used her moral clout to protest apartheid in South Africa. She also became an outspoken critic of film and television companies that promote violence - and she opposed the Iraq war.

Last August, King suffered a serious stroke and vanished from sight. About three weeks ago, she made her first public appearance in more than a year at an awards dinner in Atlanta. But she was too ill to attend the King holiday celebration at the center two weeks ago.

King's children drew a veil on their mom's struggles in recent days and checked her into the Hospital Santa Monica, a holistic healing center just across the border from San Diego.

"She came here with half her body paralyzed," said Dr. Rafael Cedeno. "She was in really bad condition."

Funeral plans are still pending, and King's body was to be returned to Atlanta this morning. Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue ordered flags at all buildings to be flown at half-staff and offered to allow King's body to lie in state at the State Capitol.

rest in peace to a great woman who was the first lady of the civil rights movement..I hope she meets her husband in heaven looking down to our country right now.. *pours out some liquor*

Can we please have a moment silence? (______)

As day comes and night falls...For the rest of our life we'll miss y'all...And even though life must go on, we'll still mourn...While wishin' y'all were home

And can we please have a moment to mourn? For MLK and CSK 'cause through us they live on.. goodbye

[EddieV]

I heard this on the news on the morning radio. Rest in Peace.