By Barbara Reynolds
TriceEdneywire.com
Coretta Scott King attends the signing of Martin Luther King, Jr. Day by President Ronald Reagan on November, 2, 1983.
Coretta Scott King died on January 30, 2006. Yet her legacy is very much alive as a coalition builder, a strategist and a moral voice that confronted detractors but insisted upon non-violent approaches, such as dialogue, protests and economic boycotts with the end goal of peaceful reconciliation.
In their own analysis, 60-era civil rights leaders used to refer to a Zeitgeist, the spirit of the times, which divine dimension that summons leaders exactly when needed most. That certainly describes the timing of human rights activist Coretta Scott King as people take a fresh look at those who successfully moved themselves and others forward through the heavy thicket of discrimination such as the leading ladies in the new film, Hidden Figures.
Coretta King certainly came to mind of many as millions gathered in Washington and in sister cities around the world last week to mount a rebuke to President Donald Trump. Her name was scrawled on home-made signs scattered throughout.
It is appropriate that we remember her appeal to women and her global human rights efforts. That was the capstone of King’s thirty-eight year mission as she shifted from civil rights to a more global inclusive human rights agenda after the assassination of her husband, Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968. A favorite slogan was: “Women, if the soul of the nation is to be saved, I believe that you must become its soul.”
In 1977, President Jimmy Carter appointed her a nonvoting delegate to the 32nd General Assembly of the United Nations, where she advocated for more international focus on the human rights of women. That same year in Houston, she served as Commissioner on the International Women’s Year Conference where she created quite a stir over her support for gay rights, an unpopular issue at the time.
In her memoir, she tells how she opposed the various women’s groups at the Conference who were advocating a constitutional ban on same-sex marriage. “I feel that gay and lesbian people have families and their families should have legal protection, whether by marriage or civil union. I believe unequivocally that discrimination because of sexual orientation is wrong and unacceptable in a democracy that protects the human rights of all its citizens.”
King was a spokeswoman for social justice causes, both large and small, writing a syndicated news column on issues from gun violence, to environmental racism, to apartheid in South Africa. She was rarely missing in action. “Sometimes you win, just by showing up,” she said, often referring to her role as a ministry of presence.
King believed that it is citizen action that is crucial to the making of a president. She often said that Ronald Reagan did not warm to the idea of a Dr. King holiday until the movement created a groundswell for it with three million signatures, marches and years of lobbying Congress. He signed it on November 20, 1983.
King’s influence was mammoth in the shaping of the political landscape. She successfully campaigned to elect scores of liberals to political office, worked with Carter in the selection of federal judges and threw her weight against those who stood in the way of voting rights.
Typical of her role is how she confronted and helped block Alabama U.S. Senator Jeff Sessions who in 1985 was vying for a federal judgeship. Sessions, who was called “brilliant” by Trump, is his choice for U.S. Attorney General. In a recently surfaced 10-page letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee, King had called him “lacking in judgement and temperament who would irreparably harm the work the movement had done to seize a slice of democracy for disenfranchised blacks.”
King opposed Sessions for his 1985 attempt to prosecute three civil rights activists from Marion, Alabama for voter fraud – accusations that were later proved unmerited. Civil rights activists fear that Sessions will not hold law enforcement officials accountable for the episodic incidents of unarmed black men being murdered, as was done under the Obama administration.
Rev. Dr. Barbara A. Reynolds is the author of seven books. Her latest is the Life, the Love and the Legacy of Coretta Scott King. Dr. Reynolds can be reached at Reynew@aol.com.
