Coretta Scott King was a woman who always believed that the world could be a better place. She was born on April 27, 1927 in the small town of Highberger, Alabama. She grew up with two older sisters Edythe, and Eunice, and one younger brother Obie Jr. (Eunice died when she was four.) Her mother’s name was Bernice and her father’s name was Obadiah. When Coretta was five she started going to school at Crossroads School. Her school was one big room with only two teachers teaching more than one hundred students. Coretta and her sister had to walk three miles to get to school every day. When Coretta asked her mother why white kids get to ride on a bus, her mother answered, “It’s just the way things are. You are just as good as anyone else…You get an education and try to be somebody. Then you won’t have to be kicked around by anybody.” In September 1939, when she was twelve, she joined her sister at Lincoln Private School as a high schooler. On Thanksgiving night, Coretta was at Lincoln when she and her sister got a phone call saying that her house was burned down. Her family lost all of their money and her dad had to find a new job. One year later, Coretta’s father came up with the idea of making his own sawmill. Two weeks later, the sawmill was burned down. Then he came up with the idea of a grocery store. Coretta started taking both piano and trumpet lessons. After she learned to read sheet music, she started taking voice lessons too. Coretta and many other students from Marion traveled far and wide giving concerts for white and black audiences. She saw how music could bring people together. She thought that, Mabe music was the way to change the world.
Coretta graduated high school at the top of her class in 1945. Her sister Edythe was already at college in Ohio. Edythe kept encouraging Coretta to come there too. That school only had a handful of black students, but Coretta wondered what the new world would be like. When Coretta went to college, she started to feel shy. She was used to an all black community. Her roommates and all of her teachers were white. Most people were friendly to her but her new roommates didn’t see that black people had the same chances as they did growing up. By her senior year, Coretta was known around campus for her singing. She kept taking music classes and studied to become a teacher. She was supposed to teach at an elementary school, but parents of white children didn’t want a black person teaching their kids. Coretta ended up teaching a class at her college. She joined a singing program called the NAACP. In 1950, she sang in a concert to support black rights.
Coretta went to Boston with a scholarship to continue learning. In Boston there were no whites only signs, but some places she still didn’t feel welcome. One of Cretta’s friends asked if she knew Martin Luther King. Coretta said no, and her friend said that he is a minister and they should meet. Coretta thought about that and she finally said yes. They met at a restaurant for lunch and talked for hours. They started to meet more often and on June 18, 1953 they got married. That September, they moved into a new house in Montgomery, Alabama’s capital. Coretta started teaching Sunday school. One year later, they had a child. She was named Yodainda, Yoki for short. Then in October 1955 the Montgomery bus boycott started. Coretta and Martin then created a group to lead the protest. The King’s home became the headquarters. Meetings were held day and night. Coretta handled mail and phone calls, and made sure that information was relayed. Weeks later, the bus boycott was over and white and black people were able to sit together.
In 1959 the family moved to Atlanta so Martin could work with other people. Then in September of 1959, their second child was born. His name was Martin Luther King the III. In 1961 another child was born, his name was Dexter. In 1963, Their fourth child was born, her name was Brenice. Five years after Brenice was born, Martin and Coretta organized a march. The march would take place on August 23, 1963 and the night before, he was typing his speech. When Coretta woke up he was still typing. The march began at the Washington Monument and ended at the Lincoln Memorial. At the march Martin gave his famous I Have A Dream speech. After the speech, Martin became super busy so Coretta filled in for him at meetings. In November of 1964, she gave her first freedom concert. She sang about the civil rights movement.
On April 3 of 1968, Martin went to Memphis, Tennessee to give another speech. The next day, Corettta got a phone call saying Martin had been shot. President Lyndon Johnson called her to say how sorry he was for her. Only a few weeks after he died Coretta Gave a speech where Martin gave his I Have A Dream Speech. In 2006, she had cancer and died at the age of seventy-eight. Coretta Scott King fought for equal rights and was a very brave civil rights leader.
-Arishka Talaviya
