Mourning the First Lady of Civil Rights

On April 4, 1968, The United States lost one of the greatest public servants to ever walk within our borders. The Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was shot and killed outside of a Memphis hotel while attempting to organize a march in support of the city's sanitation union. When he died later that night at St. Joseph's hospital, the nation mourned the man who spearheaded the movement for racial equality in America. From his Montgomery Bus Boycott (with the recently departed Rosa Parks) to the famous March on Washington, Dr. King exposed and fought the injustices that ran deep in our country's history. And his words continue to mark that struggle today.

But important as his speeches and actions were, are, and will be, for the past 38 years, we have been fortunate enough to have a face to assign to his legacy. Coretta Scott King, the so-called first lady of the civil rights movement, has been at every memorial, every service, and has spoken from the very spot where her husband delivered the words of his immortal dream too long deferred.

It was not just her face that was important, however. Mrs. King was more than a living embodiment of her husband's legacy. She was a leader in her own right. When Dr. King died, she led 50,000 marchers through the streets of Memphis, and only two months later, she headed the Poor People's March to Washington, in support the underclass of all races. It was Coretta who ran the successful campaign for a national holiday in honor of her husband, and it was she who opened and ran the Martin Luther King, Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change--an organization which continues to fight for the racial justice that Dr. King so ardently sought.

Coretta Scott King died yesterday, on January 30, 2006. But the struggle that she and her husband initiated is far from complete. Too many blacks still suffer from the racism that exists in our neighborhoods and our Congress. Too many are still forced to attend under-funded and mostly segregated public schools. Too many still do not have adequate access to affordable healthcare. Today, when we look back on the legacy of both of the Kings, we must ask ourselves whether they "have not died in vain," whether we will continue to fight for the cause that they embodied.

Only then, only once we have completed the work that Dr. King began and that Mrs. King continued will we be able to realize the dream that Dr. King conceived of. Only then can we truly say of all Americans: "Free at last! free at last! thank God Almighty, we are free at last!"

Coretta Scott King will be sorely missed.

--Rebecca