Honoring the Life and Accomplishments of Mrs. Coretta Scott King

Floor Speech

* Mr. SCHIFF. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor the life of Ms. Coretta Scott King, a civil rights icon and the widow of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., who died January 30, 2006, at the age of 78. Coretta Scott was born and raised on a farm near Marion, Alabama, where she knew little racial prejudice. However, living in town to attend high school, young Coretta learned firsthand of the harassment and violence directed at African-Americans. In 1942, at the age of 15, she was personally exposed to this hatred when the Scott home was set on fire on Thanksgiving night.

* Church and music became Coretta Scott's salvation, and in 1945, she left for Antioch College in Ohio where as one of three African-American students in her class, she began to study music and education. After graduation, Coretta ventured off to the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston to study concert singing. It was in Boston where Coretta met Martin Luther King Jr., who was then studying for his doctorate in theology. She later said, ``Even at the time we were courting, Martin was deeply concerned--and indignant--with the plight of the Negro in the United States.''

* The two married in 1953 and within the following decade became the parents to two sons and two daughters. In her new life as a married woman, Mrs. King gave up music to take on the role of a pastor's wife at Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama, where Dr. King became the seminal figure in the civil rights movement. Mrs. King joined her husband's pursuit of civil rights, and occasionally substituted for him as a speaker. They traveled the world, observing severe poverty and all its consequences, and together they learned the art of nonviolent protest from the disciples of Mahatma Gandhi. Throughout their married life, Mrs. King was an equal partner in Dr. King's tireless efforts to pursue justice, equality and peace, and was by his side in Oslo in 1964 when he received the Nobel Peace Prize.

* On April 4, 1968, Mrs. King learned of her husband's assassination through a telephone call from Reverend Jesse Jackson. While supporting a sanitation workers' strike, Dr. King was shot on a Memphis motel balcony. In her autobiography, My Life with Martin Luther King Jr., Mrs. King recalled, ``Because his task was not finished, I felt that I must rededicate myself to the completion of his work.'' Indeed, she was compelled to fully immerse herself in the nonviolent civil rights movement that her husband led. Many wives become spokespersons for their husband's causes, yet Coretta Scott King was unique; an ardent activist in the fight against injustice, Mrs. King brought a new energy to the civil rights movement. Giving hundreds of speeches and leading countless marches, Mrs. King overcame the challenges of widowhood and witnessed the successes of the civil rights movement and her husband's unfulfilled dreams.

* Neverending in her commitment to justice, Mrs. King was appointed by President Carter to the United Nations General Assembly, where she devoted herself to the development of Third World nations. She joined the fight to end apartheid and lobbied the U.S. Congress for sanctions against South Africa. Mrs. King also coordinated a 15-year campaign to keep her husband's memory alive, culminating in 1983 with the passage of legislation introduced by Congressman JOHN CONYERS and Congresswoman Shirley Chisholm to commemorate her husband's work with a federal holiday. Dr. and Mrs. King have been succeeded by their four children who have each followed in their parents' footsteps, carrying with them strong hearts, minds and voices in pursuit of justice and peace.

* Two years ago, I was invited to join a civil rights pilgrimage to Montgomery, Birmingham and Selma, Alabama. The journey was a remarkable experience. Led by Congressman JOHN LEWIS, a number of my colleagues in the House and the Senate and I visited the sites of many of the civil rights struggles, including the Kings' own Dexter Avenue Baptist Church. We experienced these places with some of the activists that led the movement and relived the moments through their eyes. To hear them share their account of the very church we were sitting in being attacked by a mob of segregationists was extraordinary.

* Those of us who were too young to remember well the civil rights movement continue to ask ourselves what would we have done? Would we have stood up, would we have questioned those in power, would we have demanded equality and justice? Or would we, like so many Americans, have remained indifferent? The best answer we can find to that question of what we would have done is answered by what are we doing now to advance the cause of justice and equality. In 1960s Alabama, Coretta Scott King and Martin Luther King, Jr., battled overt bigotry. Today, we arm ourselves against silent intolerance. While we must look to our past and consider how far we have come, we must keep an eye toward the future knowing that the movement is not over and that each one of us must continue to dedicate ourselves to pursuing an America with equal opportunity for all.

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