The AC Phoenix
March 2006
Page 3
Coretta Was More Than Just Dr. King’s Wife
By: Earl Ofari
Hutchinson
—Guest Columnist—
“I certainly appreci
ate your concern, and i
wouid appreciate
anything that you can
do to heip." That was
the dignified, but
worried, request for help
in 1959 that Coretta
Scott King made in a
phone conversation with
then Democratic presi-
dentiai candidate John
F. Kennedy. Her
husband, Dr. Martin
Luther King, Jr., had
been sentenced to four
months of hard iabor at
Georgia’s notorious
Reidsviiie State Prison
after being arrested on a
trumped-up traffic
warrant and for violating
probation. The second
charge stemmed from
Dr. King’s eariier arrest at a sit-in demonstration.
Coretta was deeply pained that Dr. King might not make it out
of Reidsviiie aiive. There had been rumors of foui piay pianned
against him. During the tense days of his imprisonment, Coretta
franticaiiy worked the phones trying to get any heip she couid for his
reiease. At the time. Pres. Kennedy was iocked in a tight White House
race with Republican Vice President Richard Nixon. Pres. Kennedy
made the cail partiy out of sincere concern for Dr. King and partiy with
an eye on the Biack vote.
Coretta’s efforts paid off for Dr. King, and Pres. Kennedy, and
sunk Mr. Nixon. The Democrats turned the call into a public relations
coup. Pres. Kennedy’s action was credited with tipping large
numbers of Blacks toward the Democrats, and Mr. Nixon, the early
odds-on favorite to win the presidency, lost by a narrow margin. Dr.
King was soon released unharmed and the Civil Rights Movement
gained greater steam and vigor in the next couple of years. Coretta’s
dogged determination to save her husband energized the civil rights
fight and changed the course of a presidential election and race
relations in America.
It was fitting that Pres. Kennedy’s life-affirming and politically
profound phone call was made to Coretta. In December 1955, she
and Dr. King anxiously kept watch at the front window of their home
in Montgomery, AL., to make sure that there were no Black riders on
the buses. She stood, walked and cheered arm in arm with him at
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countless civil rights marches, demonstrations and rallies. She
endured his long absences and the gossipy rumors of his infidelities,
and kept the family and the marriage together.
That meant great personal sacrifice. For years, the King
family lived in what charitably could be described as a ramshackle
house. As his family grew in size, friends and family members begged
him to move to a larger house. Dr. King resisted.
An exasperated Coretta fired back at the King critics that he
“felt that it was inconsistent with his philosophy” to own property.
Eventually, Dr. King gave in and paid the grand sum of $10,000 for a
bigger home. But he continued to complain that the house was “too
big” and “elegant.” King critics delighted in taking pot shots at him
for his shun of personal wealth, but Coretta’s greatest concern
remained in fulfilling Dr. King’s dream, and that did not include
fattening their bank account.
In the decade after his murder, Coretta did not fade from the
scene. She continued to storm the barricades against racial injustice,
economic inequality, military adventurism and against hate crimes
and violence. She wrote countless letters, gave speeches and
participated in direct action campaigns. She continued to fiercely
protect Dr. King’s legacy from the opportunists that twisted and
sullied his words and name.
Coretta never bought the official line that Dr. King was gunned
down by lone assassin James Earl Ray. When Ray demanded a new
trial, Coretta went to bat for him and testified in court that Mr. Ray
should get another trial. Her concern was not with him but, as she
put it, “to determine the truth” about Dr. King’s assassination. Though
there is no evidence of a government plot to kill him, Coretta still
wanted to put the FBI and the government on trial for its decades-
long illegal stealth-war of harassment, surveillance, intimidation and
poison pen letters against Dr. King and other civil rights leaders.
The friction over the affairs of the King Center that cropped up
in recent days will not alter the judgment of history about Coretta.
She and Dr. King shared the same relentless passion and vision that
helped permanently transform American society and enrich the lives
of millions of Americans of all races. She was more than just Dr.
King’s wife.
(Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and news analyst.
Visit his news commentary website at www.thehutchinsonre-
port.com.)
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