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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