A Full Partner in The Dream

Widow Quickly Found Own Voice for Change By Yvonne Shinhoster LambWashington Post Staff WriterWednesday, February 1, 2006; Page A01 Coretta Scott King, who with grace and determination kept her husband's legacy alive and emerged as one of America's most influential voices for social change and human rights, died yesterday at an alternative medical clinic in Mexico. She was 78. Mrs. King, who suffered a debilitating stroke and heart attack in August, went to Hospital Santa Monica in Rosarito Beach, a few miles south of San Diego in Baja California, Mexico, within the past two weeks for observation and treatment of ovarian cancer. Widowed by an assassin's bullet on April 4, 1968, Mrs. King did not grieve publicly. Instead, she immediately filled the void of leadership and continued to preach the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s philosophy of nonviolence, making it her own. To ensure that his dream of racial equality and justice remained etched in the collective consciousness of the nation and the world, Mrs. King founded the Martin Luther King Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change in his home town of Atlanta. She also overcame persistent opposition to secure the establishment of a national federal holiday to honor her late husband, the only such holiday honoring an African American. Mrs. King did not simply inherit her husband's legacy; instead, she was a full partner in marriage and in the struggle for equality, Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton said yesterday. Full Story: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/31/AR2006013101598.html