Coretta Scott King's death on Jan. 31 has reminded us how far we've come since she and her husband, the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. first met in the 1950s, and how far we still have to go before we can say that their goals of eliminating racial and social injustice have been realized.
In his article remembering Scott King's life, New York Times writer Peter Applebome describes Scott King as “an avid proselytizer for [King's] vision of nonviolent social change.” Scott King was much more than someone out to convert the nonbelievers. Her contributions to the civil rights movement went beyond just lending her husband her undying support and raising a family. Through her steadfast demeanor and her fierce determination, Scott King used the spotlight to demonstrate nonviolent protest as a powerful tool in fighting injustice. My parents instilled the King family's legacy in me early during my childhood in the 1980s in Southern California, constantly reminding me that education was the most effective way to resist oppression. Later, during my doctoral research in South Africa, I developed even more respect for Scott King when I learned that her embrace of nonviolent resistance was instrumental in influencing how black South African women protested apartheid.
Scott King showed signs of intellectual curiosity and leadership ability during her childhood in Alabama and her college years in Ohio. Raised in a southern family that was acutely aware of segregation's daily humiliations, Scott King's social conscience had been formed at an early age. She was the valedictorian of her class at Lincoln High School and a gifted singer and music student at Antioch College in Ohio and the New England Music Conservatory in Boston. According to her biography on Stanford University's Web site, Scott King was a politically engaged undergraduate. She joined the local NAACP chapter and served as a student delegate to the 1948 Progressive Party convention. Scott King's introduction to Martin Luther King Jr., then a young doctoral student at Boston University, solidified what was to become a union of two people who shared a passion for cultivating the interracial coalition of peace advocates known as the “beloved community.” Dr. King knew that his wife was already dedicated to fighting racism and injustice when he met her. In a 1967 interview with Arnold Michaelis, King stated, “I must admit -- I wish I could say -- to satisfy my masculine ego, that I led her down this path; but I must say we went down together, because she was as actively involved and concerned when we met as she is now.”
Both Scott King and her husband knew that inequality was not an American invention, and they eagerly consulted histories of resistance from around the world. My own research on German-Jewish South African artist Irma Stern has allowed me to read texts by German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Indian peace activist Mahatma Ghandi, and South African anti-apartheid leader Nelson Mandela in search of clues about how she expressed political resistance through her work. The Kings had read works by all of these men, whose philosophies convinced them that nonviolent protest was the most effective approach to fighting injustice. Their devotion to the international struggle against inequality took them to several continents. In the late 1950s, the Kings visited Ghana as it achieved independence from Britain. They also traveled to India, where they refined their understanding of nonviolent resistance by visiting historical sites related to Ghandi's life.
Scott King's career as a civil rights activist spanned almost 40 years after her husband's death. She had an amazing ability to unite people across race, class, and national boundaries. Immediately following King's assassination in 1968, Scott King led the Poor People's Campaign, which exposed the nation's growing social divide. She developed support for officially recognizing her husband's birthday throughout the 1970s. In 1983, Scott King's “Coalition of Conscience” gathered 800 civil and human rights organizations in Washington to commemorate the 20th anniversary of her husband's “I Have a Dream Speech.” I'm inspired every time I listen to Dr. King's speech, but I am even more inspired by Scott King's stature as a prominent female civil rights leader, which proved that black women are a powerful force in American politics.
Although she is best known for her civil rights work through her husband, Scott King has an impressive record of achievement in international human rights. In the late 1980s, Scott King was arrested at the South African embassy in Washington while protesting the brutal and overtly racist policies of South Africa's apartheid regime. She visited South Africa and encouraged the U.S. Congress to impose sanctions against the South African government. Her anti-apartheid efforts were rewarded when she attended Nelson Mandela's presidential inauguration in Pretoria in 1994. A visit to Nelson Mandela's jail cell on Robben Island in Cape Town will give you a sense of the sacrifice that Mandela, the Kings, and other human-rights leaders have made to eliminate inequality. With her passing, the torch has been handed to a new generation of global leaders charged with fighting injustice in all forms.
LaNitra Walker is a doctoral candidate in South African art history and African-American Studies at Duke University.
