1. Coretta Scott King was the wife of Martin Luther King, Jr., the slain leader of the African American Civil Rights movement. She was born on 30th January, 1927 in Alabama, USA. She was a talented musician, who played the violin and piano. When she was 15, she was choir director and pianist at her church. She was the class valedictorian, and after school, attended Antioch College in Ohio. At college, she became a member of the NAACP. She was offered a fellowship to study at the New England Conservatory of Music, Boston. Here she met Martin Luther King, Jr., who was studying theology at Boston University. They married in 1953, and had four children.

2. After they had completed their studies in Boston, King took up a position as pastor of a Baptist church in Montgomery, Alabama. Discrimination against African Americans was rife in places like Alabama, and the Kings were in the forefront of the Montgomery bus boycott in 1955. Coretta King balanced childcare with activism and played an important role in the gathering storm that was the Civil Rights Movement. She spoke before church congregations and college students. She organised and participated in the Freedom Concerts which showcased poetry narration, music and lectures related to the cause of civil rights for blacks. These concerts raised funds for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, a direct action organisation headed by King.

3. Mrs. King accompanied her husband to Ghana in 1957 to celebrate its independence. They also visited India in 1959, as they were admirers of Mahatma Gandhi. In 1962, Coretta King attended the Disarmament Conference in Geneva as a delegate for Women’s Strike for Peace.

4. Martin Luther King, Jr. was killed on 4th April, 1968. Just four days later, his widow led a march of sanitation workers in Memphis, Tennessee. In the same month, she took her husband’s place in an anti-war rally in New York City. Later that year, she helped to launch the Poor People’s Campaign.

5. Coretta King wanted her husband’s legacy to endure, and to this end she devoted her efforts to establishing the Martin Luther King, Jr. Centre for Non Violent Social Change in Atlanta. The King Centre provided training programs based on Dr. King’s philosophy of fighting for justice using non violent means. Mrs. King was the founding President and Chief Executive Officer. She oversaw the archiving of Dr. King’s writings and other documents. Thanks to her efforts, thousands have received training, and the King Centre has the largest collection of documents and writings from the Civil Rights Movement. The Centre also dealt with issues like prison reform and voter registration.

6. Along with setting up the King Centre, Coretta King made speeches at various events. She regularly wrote articles and had a syndicated column in the newspapers. She was also a commentator on CNN. In 1983, on the 20th anniversary of the March on Washington demonstration, she led a commemoration rally of over half a million people to Washington DC. She spearheaded a campaign to have a national holiday dedicated to her husband, and in 1983, her efforts bore fruit. An Act was passed by Congress, and in 1986 the first Martin Luther King, Jr. Day was celebrated in January.

7. Mrs. King was an outspoken opponent of the apartheid policy followed by South Africa. In 1985, she and three of her children were arrested for participating in a sit-in protest at the South African embassy in Washington DC. In 1986, she paid a visit to South Africa, where she met Winnie Mandela. She was present when Nelson Mandela became the first democratically elected president of South Africa.

8. Mrs. King wrote a memoir entitled My Life with Martin Luther King, Jr. in 1969. She and her son Dexter co-edited The Martin Luther King, Jr. Companion-Quotations from the Speeches, Essays and Books of Martin Luther King, Jr. in 1998. The Annual Coretta Scott King Award for outstanding African American author of children’s texts was established in 1969, and in 1979, a similar award for outstanding African American illustrator was instituted.

9. More than 60 colleges and universities conferred honorary doctorates on Mrs. King. She was an important public figure, and met a number of influential world leaders, including Bishop Desmond Tutu and the Dalai Lama.

10. When Coretta Scott King passed away in August, 2006, thousands of people came to pay their respects. She is buried beside her husband in a crypt in the reflecting pool at the Freedom Complex in King Centre. It is visited by hundreds of thousands of people from across the globe annually.