McCarty, Laura
Description
Encyclopedia article about Coretta Scott King, a proponent of civil and human rights, who helped her husband, the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., lead the modern civil rights movement. During their life together, she was his helpmate, raising their four children while supporting his efforts to promote nonviolent social change in race relations during the 1950s and 1960s. Born in 1927 in Heiberger, Alabama, she graduated from Lincoln Normal School, a private school in Marion, Alabama, supported by the American Missionary Association. She then studied music education and sang with choirs at Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio, graduating in 1951. Her excellence as a singer earned her a scholarship to New England Conservatory of Music in Boston where she received further music training. She often used her singing talents to raise funds for various civil and human rights causes and activities. She and Martin Luther King, Jr., met in Boston and were married in 1953. After her husband's assassination in 1968, she articulated a vision of his nonviolence expressed internationally through the Martin Luther King Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change that she founded in Atlanta as a memorial to her slain husband. To foster remembrance of his life and work, she advocated a federal holiday to celebrate his January birthday. She died in January 2006 at a holistic health hospital in Mexico and was both the first woman and the first African American to lie in state at the state capitol rotunda in Atlanta, Georgia. She was buried...Record Contributed By
New Georgia EncyclopediaRecord Harvested From
Digital Library of GeorgiaKeywords
- Affirmative Action Programs
- African American Civic Leaders
- African American Civil Rights Workers
- African American Musicians
- African American Singers
- African American Social Reformers
- African American Women
- African American Women Civic Leaders
- African American Women Civil Rights Workers
- African American Women Musicians
- African American Women Singers
- African American Women Social Reformers
- African Americans
- Alabama
- Anti Apartheid Activists
- Anti Apartheid Movements
- Assassination
- Atlanta
- Awards
- Bombings
- Boston
- Boycotts
- Buses
- Busing For School Integration
- Civic Leaders
- Civil Disobedience
- Civil Rights
- Civil Rights Demonstrations
- Civil Rights Movements
- Civil Rights Workers
- Concerts
- Conspiracies
- Crypts
- Death And Burial
- Death And Burial King, Martin Luther, Jr., 1929 1968
- Dexter Avenue Baptist Church (Montgomery, Ala.)
- Disarmament
- Discrimination
- Discrimination In Employment
- Dynamite
- Ebenezer Baptist Church (Atlanta, Ga.)
- Education
- Education (Graduate)
- Equal Rights Amendments
- Equality
- Equality Before The Law
- Fairness
- Fund Raising
- Georgia
- Georgia State Capitol (Atlanta, Ga.)
- Government
- Governmental Investigations
- Graduate Work
- History
- Holidays
- Human Rights
- Investigation
- Jim's Grill (Memphis, Tenn.)
- Justice
- King, Coretta Scott, 1927 2006
- King, Martin Luther, Jr., 1929 1968
- Law And Legislation
- Liberty
- Lorraine Motel (Memphis, Tenn.)
- March On Washington For Jobs And Freedom, Washington, D.C., 1963
- Marion
- Martin Luther King, Jr. Center For Nonviolent Social Change
- Martin Luther King, Jr., Day
- Mass Meetings
- Massachusetts
- Memphis
- Montgomery
- Montgomery (Ala.)
- Montgomery Bus Boycott, Montgomery, Ala., 1955 1956
- Montgomery Improvement Association
- Music
- Musicians
- National Organization For Women
- New Birth Missionary Baptist Church (Lithonia, Ga.)
- New England Conservatory Of Music
- Nobel Prize Winners
- Nobel Prizes
- Nonviolence
- Ohio
- Passive Resistance
- Peace
- Political Crimes And Offenses
- Political Violence
- Politics And Government
- Poor People's Campaign
- Protest Marches
- Race Discrimination
- Race Relation
- Race Relations
- Rotundas
- Sanitation
- Sanitation Workers
- Sanitation Workers Strike, Memphis, Tenn., 1968
- Segregation
- Segregation In Transportation
- Sex Discrimination Against Women
- Singers
- Social Justice
- Social Reformers
- Southern Christian Leadership Conference
- Southern States
- Strikes And Lockouts
- Study And Teaching (Graduate)
- Tennessee
- United States
- Universities
- Universities And Colleges
- Violence
- Wages
- Washington (D.C.)
- Women
- Women Civic Leaders
- Women Civil Rights Workers
- Women Musicians
- Women Singers
- Women Social Reformers
- Women Strike For Peace
- Yellow Springs