Coretta Scott King....

[sheldonm]

Just had a report from CNN that Coretta Scott King has passed away. Nothing else to report but wanted to pass this along.....RIP.

m~

[Christiern]

Sad news, but at least she will be spared the ugly family in-fighting over money that now has been brewing for some time.

[ghost of miles]

Sadly ironic that she passed away today. RIP.

[BERIGAN]

Amazing to me, that she was only 78. R.I.P.

Coretta Scott King dead at 78

By MARIA SAPORTA, MAE GENTRY

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Published on: 01/31/06

Coretta Scott King, the widow of Martin Luther King Jr., has died.

The 78-year-old Mrs. King died at a holistic hospital in Rosarito Beach, Mexico, 16 miles south of San Diego, said her sister, Edythe Scott Bagley.

"I was told that she slept away," said Bagley, 81, of Cheney, Pa. "It's comforting. She's at peace now."

A spokesman at Hospital Santa Monica in Rosarito Beach confirmed Mrs. King had died at the center. He could not say when she had checked in. The center's website says it treats "chronic degenerative diseases considered incurable by the orthodox medical profession."

"It is very difficult for me right now," said Christine King Farris, the sister-in-law of Coretta Scott King. "She was my sister."

Farris said the family is sorting out details. "We will bring her back here," Farris said.

Former United Nations ambassador Andrew Young, a family friend and former King aide, said Mrs. King was found dead by her daughter, Bernice.

"It seemed as though she was resting when she passed away. Bernice thought she had had a rather difficult day yesterday and felt like she needed her rest. It wasn't until early this morning that she [bernice] went to check on her and saw she had passed away," he said.

As tributes from the world poured in, a crowd formed at the King Center on Auburn Avenue in Atlanta. Many brought flowers and placed them at the reflecting pool near Dr. King's tomb.

By late-morning, the crowd of mourners at the King Center had grown to about 100.

Among the mourners was a weeping Mildred Neal, the single mother of an 11-year-old son who said she wanted to "pay my respects to her strength, her courage."

Jesse Ehnert, a consultant from Atlanta, brought his 6-month-old daughter, Melia, snuggly bundled in a yellow blanket in a baby carriage.

"I wanted to pay my respects to what she and Dr. King accomplished," he said.

Among those who brought flowers was Vernon Jones, DeKalb County chief executive officer.

"The angels came to take her home," Jones said. "I could not be what I am today without the legacy of Coretta Scott King."

As word began to spread shortly after 7 a.m., the sad duty of bringing the American flag at the King Center fell to security guard Richard Cheatham.

He set the flag at half-staff about 7:30.

"It's just sad to see her gone," said Cheatham.

Gov. Sonnny Perdue ordered flags at all state facililties lowered to half-staff until sunset on the day of Mrs. King's funeral. The service has not yet been scheduled.

Coretta Scott King was one of the most influential civil rights leaders of our time," said Perdue. "While her husband was the public face of the civil rights movement, no person is that successful without strong support at home. Mary and I mourn the passing of this dynamic leader."

Last spring, Coretta King was diagnosed with atrial fibrillation, which causes the heart to quiver instead of beat regularly. The condition led to a major stroke and a minor heart attack on Aug. 16. She was trying to recover from the stroke, which impaired her right side and speech, at the time of her death.

Gov. Sonny Perdue ordered flags on all state buildings and grounds at half-staff in memory of Mrs. King. The flags will remain at half staff until sunset the night of her funeral.

"Coretta Scott King was one of the most influential civil rights leaders of our time," said Perdue. Mrs. King was a gracious and kind woman whose calm, measured words rose above the din of political rhetoric. For decades, she proudly bore the torch of her husband's legacy. Now she has passed it on to a new generation to keep the dream alive. Mary and I mourn the passing of this dynamic leader."

"It so significant that we would lose another giant at the heels of losing Ms. Rosa Parks," said the Rev. Harold Middlebrooks, a Knoxville, Tenn., preacher who lived with members of the King family during the Rev. King's student days at Morehouse College and as a civil rights worker.

"Both of them could not be out there on the front lines," he said. "Somebody had to rear the children. That was her role. She saw that that was her role and she did it. At the same time, she was very supportive of her husband."

"I am very saddened by the suddenness of Mrs. King's death," said Evelyn Lowery, president of SCLC/WOMEN. "I am sure that she is much relieved, where she is now. Her last days were not that pleasant.

Lowery said she had seen Mrs. King over the Christmas holidays. The world saw her for the last time in January, when she made a surprise appearance at the King Salute to Greatness dinner.

"She looked so radiant and beautiful. We just hugged and hugged when we saw each other. She couldn't speak, but we were able to communicate," Lowery said. "She was such a strong person. Such a dignified person committed to the movement. She was a leader in her own right."

The Rev. Al Sharpton, a family friend, called Mrs. King's death a "monumental" loss.

" For those of us that were too young to get to know Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. very well, we got to know Coretta Scott King as a compassionate, caring, yet firm matriarch of the movement for justice. She was kind and gentle with impeccable grace and dignity, yet firm and strong and immovable under issues that she and her husband committed their lives to," said Sharpton.

During the battle to desegregate the South, Coretta Scott King walked alongside her husband. After he was assassinated in April 1968, she stepped out of his shadow and became an internationally respected advocate of justice, peace and human rights.

She worked tirelessly to spread her husband's message of fighting for equality through nonviolent struggle.

Owen Lawson, a manager for Cardinal Health Systems, came to the King Center after hearing the news. He stood for a few moments in silent meditation at the reflecting pool.

"It's not a sad day, not really," said Lawson, a 1992 graduate of Morehouse College. "It's a day to remember Mrs. King and Dr. King and all that they accomplished."

Nickeya Weathers, 29, lives around the corner from the King Center on Auburn Avenue. "I was shocked," Weathers said. "Everybody thought she would get better."

Weathers started crying while standing next to the reflection pool at the center.

"I feel like this was everybody's mother in the fact that her family was so important," she said. "It's just sad."

Said John Evans, who was taking a break from his job at the Parkview Manor Nursing and Rehab Center across Auburn Avenue from the King Center: "Boy, it's really a hurting feeling. My joy just went down when I heard about it because she was such a wonderful person for this community."

Four days after the Nobel Peace Prize winner was killed in Memphis, Coretta Scott King delivered a speech in which she declared, "We must carry on because this is the way he would have wanted it to have been. ... We are going to continue his work."

She spent the next 37 years doing just that.

— Staff writers Add Seymour, Bill Montgomery and Ernie Suggs contributed to this report.

http://www.ajc.com/news/content/metro/atla...s/0131king.html

[catesta]

Sad news, but at least she will be spared the ugly family in-fighting over money that now has been brewing for some time.

Very true and it's going to get real ugly.

R.I.P., Mrs. King.

[JSngry]

She certainly projected a quiet strength, beauty, and determination throughout her life, under even the most trying circumstances. If there was "another side" to her, you never heard about it, much less saw it on public display. She should be as much of a role model for all of us as her husband is.

[jazzbo]

Amen. RIP Coretta.

[clifford_thornton]

RIP, Mrs. King.

True, things have been nasty with the Foundation and it doesn't sound like it will get much better soon. This is common among family-associated non-profits: my mother works for the Rothko Chapel in Houston, which undergoes so much infighting it's amazing they get anything done. Family, board, whatever. Ugh.

[Brownian Motion]

King's legendary legacy tangled up in commercialism

By Leonard Pitts, Jr.

I interviewed Coretta Scott King once. It cost $5,000.

In 1985, I approached the Martin Luther King Center in Atlanta seeking both that interview and permission to use old audio of Coretta's husband for a radio documentary. I was told it would cost five grand for the audio rights and it was made clear that unless that money was paid, there would be no interview.

The ethical constraints of a radio production house are different from those of a news organization; we made the deal. I didn't like it, but I rationalized it by telling myself it was an honor to contribute to the upkeep of a legendary legacy.

Amazing what you can make yourself believe.

Coretta Scott King died this week, five months after suffering a heart attack and stroke. She is being widely and lavishly eulogized. "A remarkable and courageous woman," said the president. "A staunch freedom fighter," said the Rev. Jesse Jackson.

The praise is deserved. There was majesty and grace in Coretta Scott King, a strength of heart that was displayed nowhere more clearly than at her husband's death. Like Jacqueline Kennedy before her, she mourned inconceivable loss with awesome dignity. Since then, she has been a tireless defender of the dream her husband articulated in August of 1963.

She shielded it against racism, pessimism and defeatism. She was less successful against commercialism.

And I don't mean the piddling $5,000. That's a small symptom of the larger malady. I refer you to the King family's 1993 lawsuit against USA Today for reprinting the "I Have A Dream" speech and their subsequent licensing of King's image and voice for use in television commercials, one of which placed him between Homer Simpson and Kermit the Frog. Then there's the attempt to sell his personal papers for $20 million. Perhaps most galling was the family's demand to be paid to allow construction of a King monument on the Washington Mall.

Yes, it's all legal. But if Dr. King's life taught us nothing else, it taught us that legality and morality are not necessarily the same.

I don't mind the King family making money. But not at all costs, and certainly, not at the cost of Martin Luther King's dignity. Granted, dignity is subjective and you might draw the line in a different place than I. But I suspect most of us would agree that when a martyr, minister and American hero becomes a TV character hawking cell phones with Homer Simpson, that line has been well and truly crossed.

Coretta Scott King founded the King Center and the family has always controlled it. So it seems plain that she approved this money grubbing or at least tolerated it. And as a result, her kids have lost their minds.

Particularly the sons, Martin III and Dexter, recently seen publicly feuding over which one will have the six-figure job of running the King Center. Meantime, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution tells us the facility is in need of more than $11 million in repairs and that $4.2 million of Center money has been paid since 2000 to a company Dexter owns. This would be the same Dexter who, in 1995, visited Graceland for tips on how to exploit his father's image as Lisa Marie Presley has exploited hers.

Martin Luther King, it seems necessary to say, was not Elvis Presley. He was a man who stood for something and died for something. That something was not profit. That something belonged to all of us. One wonders if the loss of their mother will shock his children into understanding this.

I'd like to think so. But had you visited the King Center Web site three days after Coretta died looking for a tribute, here's what you'd have found: a press release, a quote from Dr. King, and a request for money. "Make an online donation in loving memory," it said.

You can do it if you want. Me, I gave at the office.