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After her husband's assassination, Coretta Scott King made a swift transition from a dedicated wife and parent living in comparative seclusion to a dynamic civil rights and peace crusader in her own right. During her husband's life, she accommodated herself to the mother/wife role; with him gone, it seemed imperative that she carry on his life's work and perpetuate his ideals actively and publicly.
Born one of three children on April 27, 1927, Mrs. King is a native of Heiberger, Alabama. During the Depression she was forced to contribute to the family income by hoeing and picking cotton, but she resolved early to overcome adversity, seek treatment as an equal, and struggle to achieve a sound education.

In 1945 she entered Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio on a scholarship, majoring in education and music. A teaching career appealed to her, but she became badly disillusioned when she was not allowed to do her practice teaching in the public schools of the town. No black had ever taught there, and she was not destined to be the first to break the tradition.

Musical training in voice and on piano absorbed much of her time, with the result that, upon graduation, she decided to continue her studies at the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston, attending on a modest fellowship which covered tuition but made part-time work a necessity. Paradoxically, her financial situation improved when she began receiving state aid from Alabama. (Such aid was available to blacks studying outside the state, but not for black applicants seeking to attend schools within the state itself.)

Her meeting with Martin Luther King thrust her into a whirlwind romance, and also presented her with the opportunity to marry an exceptional young minister whose intense convictions and concern for humanity brought her a measure of rare self-realization early in life. Sensing his incredible dynamism, she suffered no regrets at the prospect of relinquishing her own possible career.

Completing her studies in 1954, Mrs. King moved back South with her husband, who became pastor of Drexel Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama. Within a year, King had led the Montgomery bus boycott, and given birth to a new era of civil rights agitation. Two years later, he was the head of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC).

By 1964 Mrs. King was the mother of four children: Yolanda (born 1955); Martin Luther, III (born 1957); Dexter Scott (born 1961); and Bernice Albertine (born 1963).

Over the years, Mrs. King did some teaching and fund-raising work for SCLC, becoming more accustomed to the limelight, particularly after her trip to Oslo in 1964. Such exposure, however, gave her the strength, the courage, and the determination to deal with the assassination, and, later, to deliver the speeches her had drafted in rough form.

Her speech on Solidarity Day, June 19, 1968, is often identified as a prime example of her emergence from the shadow of her husband's memory. In it, she called upon American women to "unite and form a solid block of women power" to fight the three evils of racism, poverty, and war.

Much of her subsequent activity revolved around building plans for the creation of a Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial in Atlanta. Mrs. King later published a book of reminiscences, My Life With Martin Luther King Jr.

In 1982, 14 years after her husband's death, Mrs. King remains an eloquent and respected spokesperson on behalf of black causes and nonviolent philosophy. Her children are grown and carving their own careers, and she devotes most of her time to the Martin Luther King Jr. Center for Social Change in Atlanta, which has grown into a well-respected institution visited by persons from across the world.