She died in her sleep at approximately 8:30 PM local time (11:30 PM EST) on January 30, 2006 at a rehabilitation center in Rosarito Beach, Mexico, where she was undergoing holistic therapy for her stroke. Her body will be returned to Atlanta and buried next to her husband at The King Center.
Scott King was tremendously supportive to her husband during the American civil rights movement. After her husband's assassination in Memphis, Tenn., on April 4, 1968, she kept his dream alive by starting the Martin Luther King Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change, which is based in Atlanta. She also traveled extensively in order to foster her late husband's dreams. She made her last public appearance at a fundraiser on what would have been her husband's 77th birthday earlier this month. During this surprise appearance, she smiled from her wheelchair as she was greeted with a standing ovation from a crowd of 15-hundred at the Salute to Greatness Dinner at the King Center.
Coretta Scott was born on a farm in Heiberger, Alabama, and even though her family owned the land, they often had a hard time making ends meet. Coretta, her sister, Edythe, and brother, Obie, all had to pitch in and help their family by picking cotton during the Depression. The Scott family was a resourceful one and made their mark on behalf of the black people in their part of the world. Her father, Obediah, was the first black person in the area to own a truck, and he eventually opened a country store. Her mother, Bernice, hired a bus to drive all the black children to and from Lincoln High School — nine miles from Heiberger.
Scott King was an intelligent and hardworking student. She played trumpet and piano, and graduated as valedictorian from Lincoln High at the top of her class in 1945 and followed her older sister to Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio, where Edythe had been the first full-time black student to live on campus.
At Antioch, Scott King majored in music and education, receiving a B.A. After graduating, she decided to pursue music instead of teaching and received a scholarship to study violin and voice at the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston where she received another degree in voice and violin. While there, she met her future husband, Martin Luther King Jr., who was studying theology at Boston University.
The Kings were married on June 18,1953, and the following year, they moved to Montgomery, Ala., where King began his ministry. The couple worked closely together with Scott King organizing her husband's marches and sit-ins at segregated restaurants while raising their four children: Yolanda Denise, Martin Luther III, Dexter Scott and Bernice Albertine.
Scott King became an activist in her own right - carrying messages of international peace and economic justice to organizations around the world. She was the first woman to deliver the Class Day address at Harvard University and the first woman to preach during a service at St. Paul's Cathedral in London. She tirelessly continued to work for equality, peace and economic justice throughout her life, both in the United States and abroad. She spoke out against poverty in Latin America and in South Africa against apartheid. During the last decade of her life, her focus was on AIDS awareness and curbing gun violence. Scott King also led the campaign to make her late husband's birthday, Jan. 15, a national holiday in the United States, with the first national observance of the holiday taking place in 1986.
Funeral Arrangements are as follows:
On Saturday February 4, 2006 , King's body will lie in state from noon until 8 p.m. in the rotunda of the state Capitol at the corner of Martin Luther King Jr. Drive and Washington Street in downtown Atlanta.
She will lie in state again Monday February 6, 2006 at historic Ebenezer Baptist Church from 10 a.m. until midnight. The church is located at 520 Auburn Avenue NE next to the King Center, which Coretta Scott King founded in 1968.
Also Monday February 6, 2006, from noon to 1 p.m., there will be a memorial musical celebration at the Ebenezer Baptist Church Horizon Sanctuary, which is across the street from historic Ebenezer on Auburn Avenue.
King will lie in state again on the day of her funeral, Tuesday February 7, 2006 , from 6:30 a.m. until 9:30 a.m. at New Birth Missionary Baptist Church, 6400 Woodrow Road in Lithonia. Her funeral service will be from noon until 3 p.m.
1. Her lifelong journey remembered Click Here
