TCXPI Presents Dr. and Mrs. Martin L. King, Jr.
A Story Of Love, Dedication, and Commitment
Born and
raised in Marion, Alabama, Coretta Scott graduated valedictorian from Lincoln
High School. She received a B.A. in music and education from Antioch College in
Yellow Springs, Ohio, and then went on to study concert singing at Boston’s New
England Conservatory of Music, where she earned a degree in voice and violin.
Coretta
Scott, met Martin Luther King, Jr. who was then studying for his doctorate in
systematic theology at Boston University. They were married on June 18, 1953,
and in September 1954 took up residence in Montgomery, Alabama, with Coretta
Scott King assuming the many responsibilities of pastor’s wife at Dexter Avenue
Baptist Church.
During
Dr. King’s career, Mrs. King devoted most of her time to raising their four
children: Yolanda Denise (1955), Martin Luther, III (1957), Dexter Scott
(1961), and Bernice Albertine (1963). From the earliest days, however, she
balanced mothering and Movement work, speaking before church, civic, college,
fraternal and peace groups. She conceived and performed a series of
favorably-reviewed Freedom Concerts which combined prose and poetry narration
with musical selections and functioned as significant fundraisers for the
Southern Christian Leadership Conference, the direct action organization of
which Dr. King served as first president. In 1957, she and Dr. King journeyed
to Ghana to mark that country’s independence. In 1958, they spent a belated
honeymoon in Mexico, where they observed first-hand the immense gulf between
extreme wealth and extreme poverty. In 1959, Dr. and Mrs. King spent nearly a
month in India on a pilgrimage to disciples and sites associated with Mahatma
Gandhi. In 1964, she accompanied him to Oslo, Norway, where he received the
Nobel Peace Prize. Even prior to her husband’s public stand against the Vietnam
War in 1967, Mrs. King functioned as liaison to peace and justice
organizations, and as mediator to public officials on behalf of the unheard.
After
her husband’s assassination in 1968, Mrs. King founded and devoted great energy
and commitment to building and developing programs for the Atlanta-based Martin
Luther King, Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change as a living memorial to
her husband’s life and dream. Situated in the Freedom Hall complex encircling
Dr. King’s tomb, The King Center is today located inside of a 23-acre national
historic park which includes his birth home, and which hosts over one million
visitors a year.
As
founding President, Chair, and Chief Executive Officer, she dedicated herself
to providing local, national and international programs that have trained tens
of thousands of people in Dr. King’s philosophy and methods; she guided the
creation and housing of the largest archives of documents from the Civil Rights
Movement; and, perhaps her greatest legacy after establishing The King Center
itself, Mrs. King spearheaded the massive educational and lobbying campaign to
establish Dr. King’s birthday as a national holiday. In 1983, an act of
Congress instituted the Martin Luther King, Jr. Federal Holiday Commission,
which she chaired for its duration. And in January 1986, Mrs. King oversaw the
first legal holiday in honor of her husband–a holiday which has come to be
celebrated by millions of people world-wide and, in some form, in over 100
countries.
