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Coretta Scott King, the widow of civil rights activist Martin Luther King Jr., has died. She was 78. She was 78 and had been in failing health since suffering a stroke and heart attack last August. Mrs. King appeared at a Martin Luther King Day dinner on Jan. 14, but did not speak.
Mrs. King died in a holistic hospital in Mexico, near California, said Edythe Scott Bagley, her sister. She had been admitted to the hospital last Thursday and was accompanied by her daughter, Bernice King, and a caretaker from Atlanta.
Andrew Young, the former United Nations ambassador and longtime family friend, said at a news conference this morning that Mrs. King died in her sleep. "She was a woman born to struggle," Mr. Young said, "and she has struggled and she has overcome."
In a statement, the King family thanked mourners for the condolences expressed at the death of the "first lady of human and civil rights."
President Bush today issued a statement saying that he and his wife Laura were "deeply saddened" by the news. "Mrs. King's lasting contributions to freedom and equality have made America a better and more compassionate nation," he said.
Mrs. King rose from rural poverty in Heiberger, Ala., to become an international symbol of the civil rights revolution of the 1960s and a tireless advocate for a long litany of social and political issues, ranging from women's rights to the struggle against apartheid in South Africa, that followed in its wake.
She was studying music at the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston in 1952 when she met a young graduate student in philosophy, who on their first date told her: "The four things that I look for in a wife are character, personality, intelligence and beauty. And you have them all." A year later she and Dr. King, then a young minister from a prominent Atlanta family, were married, beginning a remarkable partnership that ended with Dr. King's assassination in Memphis on April 4, 1968.
Mrs. King did not hesitate to pick up his mantle. Before he was even buried, she marched at the head of a demonstration staged by the garbage workers he had gone to Memphis to champion. She then went on to lead the effort for a national holiday in his honor and to found the Martin Luther King Jr. Center for Non-Violent Social Change in Atlanta, dedicated both to scholarship and to activism, where Dr. King is buried.
Aside from the trauma of her husband's death, which left her alone with four young children, Mrs. King faced other trials and controversies over the years. She was at times viewed as chilly and aloof by others in the movement. The King Center was criticized first as competing for funds and siphoning energy from the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, which Dr. King had headed. In recent years, it has been widely viewed as adrift, characterized by intra-family squabbling and a focus more on Dr. King's legacy than continuing his work. And even many allies were baffled and hurt by her campaign to exonerate James Earl Ray, who in 1969 had pleaded guilty to her husband's murder, and her contention that Ray did not commit the crime.
But more often, Mrs. King has been seen as an inspirational figure around the world, a dogged advocate for her husband's causes and a woman of enormous spiritual depth who came to personify the ideals Dr. King fought for.
"I think the way I will remember her is as a totally faithful, totally devoted wife and mother who nevertheless found time to offer her leadership skills and be involved with other children in need all over the world," Mr. Young said today.
Peter Applebome
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