Nevertheless, She Persisted and Dissented : #WCW Feminist Profile: Coretta Scott King

This week, while we honor and celebrate the life of Martin Luther King Jr., I also wanted to take a moment to celebrate Coretta Scott King. Coretta was an American activist, author, musician, singer, and civil rights leader, and fought alongside her husband in the Civil Rights Movement during the 1960’s.

Coretta Scott, named after her grandmother Cora McLaughlin Scott, was born in Marion, Alabama on April 27th, 1927 to Obadiah and Bernice Scott. The Scott family had owned a farm since the American Civil War, but were not wealthy by any means. During the Great Depression, Coretta and her siblings picked cotton to help earn money for the family.

As a self-described ‘tomboy’ as a child, she enjoyed climbing trees and wrestling boys, and was very strong for her size. Her brother, Obadiah, stated that Coretta “always tried to excel in everything she did”. Despite having a formal education themselves, her parents were determined to provide education for their children. Her mother, Bernice, was quoted as saying “my children are going to college, even if it means I only have but one dress to put on”.

Coretta and her siblings went to a one-room elementary school 5 miles from their home, and later, due to racial segregation, were bussed 9 miles away to Lincoln Normal School, the closest black high school in Marion, Alabama. (The bus was driven by her mother, Bernice, who took all the local black teenagers to school and back) In 1945, Coretta graduated valedictorian and enrolled in Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio, where her older sister attended. There, she studied Interracial Education, which was a program that recruited nonwhite students and gave them full scholarships to attend the historically white campus.

Coretta said that “Antioch had envisioned itself as a laboratory in democracy but had no black students. Edythe (her sister) became the first African American to attend Antioch on a completely integrated basis, and was joined by two other black female students in the fall of 1943. Pioneering is never easy, and all of us who followed my sister at Antioch owe her a great debt of gratitude”.

Because of her experienced in college, she became politically active, joining the Antioch chapter of the NAACP and the college’s Race Relations and Civil Liberties Committees. But college wasn’t without many trials; in her second year, as a requirement for her degree, she requested to perform her required teaching practice at Yellow Springs’ public schools, but was denied by the school board based on racial discrimination. She appealed to her college administration, but they were unable to change the situation in the local school system. Instead, Antioch employed her at the college’s associated laboratory.

Coretta won a scholarship to New England Conservatory of Music in Boston and transferred there, where she met Martin Luther King Jr. Her friend, Mary Powell, had given Coretta phone number to Martin (along with two other girl’s numbers). However, Martin was unimpressed with the other girls, and called her on the phone, after which they met in person. The rest is history. Two weeks after they’d met, Martin had wrote to his mother saying that he’d met his future wife.

Coretta took a little longer to get there; however, she detailed to her sister Edythe her feelings for Martin and when asked what she liked about him, she said he reminded her so much of their father. Edythe said she knew Martin was “the one” for Coretta at that very moment.

King's parents visited him in the fall and had suspicions about Coretta Scott after seeing how clean his apartment was. While the Kings had tea and meals with their son and Scott, Martin Sr. turned his attention to her and insinuated that her plans of a career in music were not fitting for a Baptist minister's wife. After Coretta did not respond to his questioning of their romance being serious, Martin Sr. asked if she took his son "seriously". King's father also told her that there were many other women his son was interested in and had "a lot to offer." After telling him that she had "a lot to offer" as well, Martin Luther King Sr. and his wife went on to try and meet with members of Coretta's family. Once the two obtained Edythe's number from Coretta, they sat down with her and had lunch with her. During their time together, Martin Luther King Sr. tried to ask Edythe about the relationship between her sister and his son. Edythe insisted that her sister was an excellent choice for Martin Luther King Jr., but also felt that Coretta did not need to bargain for a husband. [1]

On Valentine’s Day, 1953, they announced their engagement in the Atlanta Daily World, and were married on June 18th, 1953. Unlike what was acceptable at this time, Coretta had the vow to ‘obey her husband’ removed from the ceremony. After completing her degree in voice and piano at New England Conservatory, they moved to Montgomery, Alabama in September of 1954.

Coretta said that "after we married, we moved to Montgomery, Alabama, where my husband had accepted an invitation to be the pastor of Dexter Avenue Baptist Church. Before long, we found ourselves in the middle of the Montgomery bus boycott, and Martin was elected leader of the protest movement. As the boycott continued, I had a growing sense that I was involved in something so much greater than myself, something of profound historic importance. I came to the realization that we had been thrust into the forefront of a movement to liberate oppressed people, not only in Montgomery but also throughout our country, and this movement had worldwide implications. I felt blessed to have been called to be a part of such a noble and historic cause."[2]

Devoted to the her cause, Coretta gave up her dreams of becoming a classical singer so that Martin could become a full-time pastor of Dexter Avenue Baptist Church; this sacrifice in the name of the movement would become symbolic for the actions of African American women during the movement.[3] The mid 1950’s were tumultuous, and the Kings received many death threats at Martin’s involvement with the Montgomery Bus Boycott. By the end of the boycott, Mrs. King and her husband had come to believe in nonviolent protests as a way of expression consistent with biblical teachings.[4] Two days after the integration of Montgomery's bus service, on December 23, a gunshot blasted through the front door of the King home while Coretta, Martin, and their daughter were asleep, though the three were unharmed. [5] As a family, they continued to be subject to acts of violence.

Coretta served as a delegate for the Women’s Strike for Peace Conference in Geneva, Switzerland in 1962 and in New York in 1963. She worked hard to pass the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and spoke with Malcom X days before his assassination. On March 26, 1965 Coretta and Martin, along with her father, marched to Montgomery.

Later, in January 1966, she criticized the sexism of the Civil Rights Movement in the New Lady magazine, saying in part, "Not enough attention has been focused on the roles played by women in the struggle. By and large, men have formed the leadership in the civil rights struggle but...women have been the backbone of the whole civil rights movement." [6] In 1968, she participated in a Women Strike for Peace protest at the capital of Washington D.C., with over 5,000 women. She co-chaired the Congress of Women conference and was part of the Jeannette Rankin Brigade, which honored the first woman elected to the House of Representatives.

Two days after her husband's death, Coretta spoke at Ebenezer Baptist Church where she said her husband told their children, "If a man had nothing that was worth dying for, then he was not fit to live." She talked about his beliefs and ideals and said while he may be dead, "his spirit will never die”. [7] She also delivered a speech at a rally he was supposed to attend, not long after his assassination, in New York City; using his notes, Coretta wrote her own speech and delivered it to the crown with strength, and later took hold of the movement that was hurting in her husband’s absence.

Eventually, she broadened her cause to women’s rights, LGBTQ rights, economic issues, world peace, amongst others. In a Solidarity speech, she asked women to “unite and form a solid block of women power to fight the three great evils of racism, poverty and war.” [8] Following this speech, she spoke at an anti-war demonstration in Central Park in place of her husband, and asked, “why a nation as rich as ours should be blighted by poverty, disease, and illiteracy?”, reminding the audience that while we fight wars abroad, there are many, many wars we fight in our own country, which claim the lives of children, as well as women and men.

As a leader in the movement, she founded the Martin Luther King Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change in Atlanta, serving as the president and CEO until passing it onto their son Dexter, and in 1969 she released her memoirs, My Life with Martin Luther King, Jr.

Coretta Scott King’s life was full to the brim of not just advocacy, but action, not just understanding, but compassion. She was a strong willed woman who fought for what she believed in, sacrificed for her causes, and never stopped, even after unspeakable tragedy, loss, and despair. She was such a brilliant woman, so talented, so commanding. We must not forget to celebrate her life, along with her husband’s. They were two of the most important people in our history, and their life’s work, their sacrifices, cannot be in vain. In times as hard and trying as these, we cannot let our America stand for anything less than refuge, peace, and goodwill. We must use our voices, we must use our power, as the King’s demonstrated, through nonviolent protest and political action.