While January 30, 2006 drew this year’s first month to a close, it also marked the demise of Coretta Scott King (78), the wife of slain Civil Rights Leader, Martin Luther King Jr. Popularly known as “matriarch of the movement,” Coretta Scott was for long considered a noted community leader and civil rights activist in her own right.She first came into the public eye in December 1955 in the infamous Montgomery Bus Case, in which Rosa Parks, an African American seamstress and Civil Rights activist, who refused to yield her Montgomery City bus seat to a white passenger, was subsequently arrested. The people of Montgomery, under the leadership of Martin Luther King Jr. and Coretta, organized a boycott of the city’s buses. The incident brought drew the attention of the world to the continued injustice of segregation in the US.
Since 1955, Coretta Scott came a long way indeed. Her role in American history brought her an iconic status, and her actions have left an impressive legacy for civil rights movements around the world. After years of strive, she succeeded in getting January 15(her husband’s birth date) marked as a national holiday. She was active at many sit-in protests to sound her opposition against apartheid, and met many leading civil rights activists, including Winnie Mandela (wife of Nelson Mandela), whom she met when she traveled to South Africa. Besides establishing the King Center, she also published her widely read memoir, “My life with Martin Luther King Jr.”
She was vocal in her opposition to Capital Punishment as also the 2003 invasion of Iraq. A strong champion of world peace, Coretta Scott was one of the founders of The Committee for a Sane Nuclear Policy. She also advocated women’s rights, gay and lesbian rights and AIDS / HIV prevention. She had her share of detractors though, who openly opposed her support for gay and lesbian rights.
She breathed her last, late evening on January 30, 2006 in Mexico, where she was undergoing holistic treatment for a stroke that she suffered the year before as also for ovarian cancer. Her death has dealt an irreparable blow to civil rights activists the world over, for whom she has left an enduring legacy.
