Date: 2006-02-01
Speaker: CORRINE BROWN (democrat)
Chamber: H
State: Florida

Mr. Speaker. the great Coretta Scott King. perhaps best known as being the wife of the Reverend Martin Luther King. was. like her husband. a pioneer in the civil rights field in her own right. Rising from the dust of rural poverty of a small. town in Alabama. she will be remembered as being an outstanding advocate of ra- . cial peace and nonviolent social change. Ms. King was a strong woman. one of the few women leaders in a civil rights movement which. at the time. consisted almost exclusively of men. Mrs. King was one of the first who broke the mold. A mother of four. which in and of itself is more than a full days work. she also was a woman who took on a high profile position in the civil rights movement in a most difficult time of conflict in our country. Soon after the death of the late Martin Luther King. she quickly developed her own voice and even her own causes. Although there was some overlap with her husbands battles. she broadened the civil rights agenda quite a bit. focusing on the inclusion of women in our society here at home. speaking out against the war in Vietnam. and promoting peace internationally. She quickly moved on to stand in for her late husband at the Poor Peoples Campaign at the Lincoln Memorial on June 19. 1968. just two months after his assassination. At the Memorial. she spoke not just about the Reverends vision. but also about her own. a vision about gender as well as race. wherein she called upon American women to "unite and form a solid block of women power to fight the three great evils of racism. poverty. and war." She then joined the board of directors of the National Organization for Women. as well as the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and became widely identified with a broad array of international human rights issues. rather than being focused primarily on race here in the United States. This broadened .view. she went on to say. was her way of carrying on the legacy of her husband. the great Reverend Martin Luther King. In doing so. she led the effort to memorialize Dr. King. and was the greatest advocate for a national holiday in his honor. which came to fruition on January 20th in 1986. and has been celebrated on the third Monday in January every year since then. She later founded the Martin Luther King. Jr. Center for NonViolent Social Change in Atlanta. an institution dedicated to scholarships and activism. with the purpose of continuing on his work and providing a research center for scholars studying the civil rights era. To the end. Mrs. King remained to be a most loved woman by all. Often compared to Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis as a woman who overcame tragedy. held her family together and then became an inspirational presence around the world. Her admirers always said that Mrs. King took on a particularly difficult task. that of. carrying on her husbands work and teachingswith a sense of spirit and purpose that made her more than just a symbolic figure. but a true leader. Indeed. her death is a heartfelt loss. not only for African Americans. but for our Nation. I wholeheartedly believe that the people of our Nation need to work to uphold the legacy of these two brave women and the civil rights movement. which. although it has come a long way. has taken recent strides in the wrong direction under a more than callous Republican leadership. Mrs. King was a most inspirational woman. whose unwavering spirit stepped in to continue the struggle for the ideals of the great Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King. All of my heart and prayers go out to the King family.