Coretta Scott King: the woman behind the King anniversary - Martin Luther King Jr

Ebony, Jan, 1990 by Lynn Norment

CORETTA SCOTT KING The Woman Behind The King Anniversary

IT is another busy day for Coretta Scott King.

At around 7 a.m. her day begins as the previous one ended: watching television news and reading the newspaper in the same bedroom she once shared with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. After digesting the day's news, along with a cup of tea, she turns off the television set and in the early morning quite meditates and prays--on world issues, on Atlanta, on social issues, on her day's schedule.

At about 9 a.m., personal secretary Patricia Latimore arrives to assist Mrs. King with her correspondence and other personal business, as well as wardrobe selection for the day. At the same time, Mrs. King goes over the details of the day's schedule with special assistant Beni Ivey via a telephone line that links her directly to her office at The Martin Luther King Jr. Center For Nonviolent Social Change, of which she is founding president and chief executive officer.

There will be an interview, a photography session, a lunch-time gathering with her children, meetings with her staff, a board meeting to coordinate, a visit to the King Center's early learning facility, and a pep talk to the student conference planning committee. The day is due to end about 11 p.m., after the final encore of Stepping Into Tomorrow, a theatrical production presented by daughter Yolanda King and Attallah Shabazz, co-directors of Nucleus Theatre Co.

After going over her schedule, Mrs. King pulls on a jogging suit, crosses the hallway and exercises for 30 minutes on the state-of-the-art electronic bicycle that occupies the middle of the floor in a guest bedroom. The machine actually belongs to her son, Fulton County Commissioner Martin Luther King III who soon greets his mom with a cheery good morning as he moves about the house.

On this particular morning, Mrs. King is visiting with EBONY's Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist Moneta Sleet Jr., who has been photographing the King family for some 30 years. As she exercises, her conversation is prepared with anecdotes about her life with Dr. King, the charismatic young preacher and civil rights leader who was assassinated in 1968. When Sleet comments on how she has always managed to remain composed during times of controversy, Mrs. King graciously accepts the compliment. "It seems that when there's a crisis, I call upon all my energy, all my resources," she says.

She goes on to tell about the night in 1956 when the King home in Montgomery, Ala., was bombed, and how she remained rational in the midst of chaos. Later, when Dr. King arrived home to find Mrs. King calmly awaiting him, he commented on how much he appreciated his wife staying so sedate under such tense circumstances.

That same sense of control and composure has characterized Mrs. King over the years as she has endured countless crises. The most recent examples include the resignation of her son, Dexter, as president of the King Center last August after being appointed to the leadership post a few months earlier. In addition, much speculation erupted in October when Dr. Ralph D. Abernathy, who was a close friend of Dr. King, published in his autobiography a controversial account of Dr. King's final night.

Through it all, Mrs. King remained calm--and noticeably silent.

"I have always chosen not to speak or respond to any public criticism or public controversy that involves me directly or indirectly," she says with a confident smile. "I feel that if you've got a problem with a person or individual, you ought to sit down and talk to that person directly about it. I think that in the spirit of nonviolence, that is the way you should do it.

"In the case where my husband is being attacked--he doesn't need any defense. His life and his work speak for themselves--the fact that we have a national holiday, the fact that people are celebrating around the world, the fact that every place you go in the world people honor and revere him. I don't think that anybody can harm or hurt him. I have chosen not to speak out because I am satisfied that Martin's ideals and his contributions have been immortalized; his death as a martyr has assured that."

Mrs. King says each crisis has strengthened her resolve to achieve her goals. "There is no problem that we can't solve it we can corral our resources behind it," she says. "That means people, that means money, that means the good will and cooperation of a large segment of the people."

She speaks from personal experience, not just from an idealistic perspective. Mrs. King is a can-do person who is constantly setting new goals for herself. After a breakfast of grapefruit, apple juice, a slice of toast, and a small portion of cottage cheese, she is driven to her office 15 minutes away. By now, hundreds of visitors have already toured the complex, which is the realization of one of her dreams.

During the two decades since Dr. King was slain, she has worked diligently to raise more than $10 million to build the King Center. And she was adamant that "nonviolent social change" be a part of its official name. Today, the center functions as a working monument to advance Dr. King's work for nonviolent social change through educational and social action programs. Founded in the basement of her Sunset Avenue home in Atlanta shortly after Dr. King was slain in 1968, the center is now a sprawling complex that houses the center's offices, Dr. King's crypt, the Freedom Hall meeting facility, and a theater and auditorium. It has an annual budget of $3.2 million and employs 63 people.