Coretta Scott was already a woman of purpose when she enrolled in the New England Conservatory School in Boston. She was born in Marion, Alabama, on April 27, 1927, to Bernice McMurray and Obidiah Scott. Corretta grew up in the rural parts of America, where before every sunup, she had to wake up and feed the chickens and milk the cow before making the 3-mile walk to her segregated elementary school, in order to be on time. It was there, in a one-room schoolhouse with brilliant, dedicated teachers that she began to shine in music. Hard work and education were the basic values of this beautiful woman, and she continued to supplement her scholarship with jobs as a hotel maid and waitress in Boston, where she met Martin Luther King Jr. in February, 1952. Martin was from another genre. He was hardly the kind of man Coretta was looking for as a future partner, even though all the other women were after him; for most of Boston’s bourgeois beauties, he was considered the prize catch. Her marriage to Martin on June 18^th 1953 took place on the lawns of her parents’ home in Marion, Alabama. The wedding was officiated by Martin’s father, ‘Daddy King’, who later became one of her greatest supporters. Her marriage to Martin Luther King gave her a mission greater than life itself and two years later, when he was stabbed by a demented woman in Harlem, she knew she was committed for life. Throughout the dark days of the Civil Rights’ Movement, the non-violence protests, the bigotry, the police brutality, the arrests, Coretta was always there to prop her husband up on every leaning side. There was hardly anything he said or did that did not produce controversy, but she seemed to be the stable axle around which everything turned. And she was always calm and composed, no matter the danger or conflict. It was Coretta’s efforts to nurture Martin’s mind and faith back to reasonable strength that kept him going, even in the darkest of moments. She encouraged him never to retaliate whether he was stabbed, tortured or even bombed. Coretta never wavered or asked Martin to slow down. Even in her final days, Coretta Scott King seemed to toughen in the difficulties of her life from childhood, through the Movement, in her loneliness, and in death. She became ‘diamond-like’ in her character. The more savage the criticism, the gossip and controversy, the more she seemed to shine. She never complained. She never wavered. She never faltered. The attacks and misunderstandings seemed to sharpen and polish her beautiful persona, producing in her life a 78-carat diamond, ready to return to her husband, and return home to the Lord. Shining, glistening and sparkling through it all.

Tags: New England Conservatory School, Coretta Scott King, Activists

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