Essence

"Mrs. King worked to create a beloved community in one of the nations darkest moments. We drew strength from her presence. She taught us how to have hope with suffering." —Dr. Dorothy I. Height, president emeritus and chair, National Council of Negro Women.

"Something to think about: Who was she before she married? As a little girl she walked five miles to school with buses of White children driving past her. On the weekends she picked cotton. In college she had to challenge racist practices that would have kept her from her goals. What she went through growing up in the South made her understand so much about what happens every day to Black people, and what it means to try to have some sense of integrity and worth." —Bernice Johnson Reagon, author, composer, founder, Sweet Honey in the Rock

"The legacy of Mrs. King and her husband is that people like me get to do the things that I'm now doing. Their struggle meant everything to me. The difference between my life in Alabama in 1963 and my life in 1965, postsegregation, was profound. As a child I remember seeing her with Dr. King when they would come into the city, but I saw her last when I was national security adviser at an event at The White House. She was so kind and so supportive. She said, 'You're doing great, and we're very proud of you.' I was thrilled to have her say that." —Condoleezza Rice, U.S. secretary of state

What resonates with me is Mrs. King's maintenance of Dr. King, not only as a civil-rights leader but also as her mate. After we lost our mother I had a very intimate conversation with Mrs. King in which she expressed how much she missed my mother. It enabled us to share a quiet relationship independent of all the activism. She had a graceful softness, yet she was very resonant, strong and present. I just adored her." —Ms. Shabazz, eldest daughter of Malcolm X

"My favorite memory of Mrs. King is sitting in her living room as she showed me old photographs and shared memories of her husband. I mentioned how difficult my life is for my wife and how I could only imagine what Mrs. King must have gone through given the pressures on Dr. King. She repeated something he had told her, that when you're committed to a cause you're never alone. For a woman of her stature to be able to share that advice with my family and me was precious." —Barack Obama, U.S. senator, Illinois

"Many people see her as the solemn widow, properly made up and dignified, but in the 38 years since Dr. King's assassination, she was a participant in every human-rights campaign for any group that was disenfranchised. She had a great enjoyment, a certain pleasure and effervescence, in struggle and trying to make a change. She was also a funny woman who loved to laugh. Her resilience was a very effective model for everybody else—if she could take one more step and keep going after all those years, then none of us should be complaining about anything." —Mary Frances Berry, Geraldine Segal Professor of American Social Thought and History, University of Pennsylvania

Sister Coretta's work and her precious and powerful presence will never die. As the days turn into months and years, we will continue to remember her as a revolutionary, because she called for a fundamental change in how we relate to one another all over this world." —Dr. Johnnetta Betch Cole, president, Bennett College for Women

"Coretta Scott King was probably the most underestimated woman because many saw her just as Dr. King's wife and ultimately his widow. They didn't understand that there would not have been a Martin Luther King had there not been a Coretta Scott King. Anytime you were around her, you were always challenged by her sense of grace and dignity and poise. She had a regal bearing, yet a common touch. I think it will be a long time before we see someone of her commitment and stature again." —Reverend Al Sharpton, founder and president, National Action Network

When Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., died in 1968, we mourned the man who had been the backbone of the movement—but Coretta Scott King was its heart. Photographs often captured her still demeanor, yet life had taught her how to flow across its toughest terrain. Although she had no desire to marry when she met Dr. King, she was so moved by his passion for justice that she gave up her ambitions of being a classical singer to become a preacher's wife. But her decision wasn't all about self-sacrifice. Dr. King's dream matched her own. Call it destiny or an anointing, their union was forged by such purpose not even the government's illegal spying could destroy it.

But if the weight of the Civil Rights Movement rested on Dr. King's shoulders, it lived inside Mrs. King's soul. Her personal ambitions became secondary to the pursuit of justice. During much of her married life, Coretta Scott King was a stay-at-home mom, raising the couple's four children. While her husband was emerging as one of the most powerful men in history, she was often forced to face terrifying events without him. She was at home with the couple's 10-week-old first child, Yolanda, when someone threw a bomb on the front porch at the height of the 1956 Montgomery Bus Boycott.

Four years later, while she was pregnant with their third child, her husband was arrested on trumped-up charges and sentenced to six months of hard labor in Georgia's Reidsville State Prison. In a move that gave the world its first glimpse of her resolve, Mrs. King called the Democratic presidential candidate John F. Kennedy. His brother Robert, who would become the attorney general, called the judge who'd sentenced Dr. King. Within hours, the Democratic nominee himself was on the phone assuring her that they would do what they could to facilitate her husband's release. Mrs. King later cited Kennedy's response as the reason that Black voters galvanized to support him in the 1960 general election. That same spirit sustained her in the campaign that resulted in a national holiday to honor her husband's dreams and in building the Martin Luther King, Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change in Atlanta.

She launched her career as the preeminent human-rights voice when she became the first woman to speak at London's St. Paul Cathedral in 1969. In the eighties, during South Africa's fight to end apartheid, she joined the Washington, D.C., sit-ins that sparked America's activism. And in the nineties, she used her formidable presence to support legislation giving gays and lesbians protection from job discrimination—despite criticism from other longtime civil-rights activists.

Coretta Scott King did all this while nurturing a strong Black family. She refused to be fixed in her time of grief. She was the river that carried Black people from the quest for civil rights to the shores of self-determination. Her life was a testament to the strength of visionary Black women. Her legacy can be found in a line from a speech she gave in her later years: "Women, if the soul of the nation is to be saved, I believe you must be its soul." And she was.

"She inspired us to serve." —Donna Brazile, chair, Voting Rights Institute, CNN correspondent

"Her example of reaching out to others in love and reconciliation taught us that love is indestructible and only increases by being shared." —The King children

Mary Mitchell, who authored this essay, is a columnist for the Chicago Sun-Times.

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