Coretta Scott King, a lifelong social activist, champion of human rights, and the wife and widow of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was laid to rest Tuesday next to her husband at the King Center in Atlanta.

She died last Monday at the age of 78 at the Hospital Santa Monica in Rosarito, Mexico while seeking treatment for ovarian cancer. She had been struggling to recover from a heart attack and stroke suffered last August.

“The death to me was a sort of a shock,” said Madeline Flamer-Banks of SF State’s Africana Studies department.

While studying music at the New England Conservatory in Boston she began dating the young minister who was studying philosophy at Boston College. Married in 1953, King and her new husband moved to Montgomery, Alabama, where he soon gained national attention as the leader of the bus boycott.

A partner in her husband’s work, King joined him in civil rights demonstrations, and traveled with him until his assassination on April 4, 1968 in Memphis. The mother of four young children became an icon as a strong woman ready to continue Dr. King’s struggle for justice, peace, and equality.

Although many of her achievements were in creating a lasting legacy of her husband’s work, she soon found her own voice and urged women of all colors to unite to fight injustice and war. She spoke out on a wide array of international human rights issues, and in recent years made controversial remarks saying that if her husband were alive today he would support equality for gays in our society. Her support for gay and lesbian rights, including same-sex marriage, sometimes put her in conflict with family members including her daughter and niece.

“Family pressure, stresses of her legacy, and a struggle between her children, that has to be hard on a parent. To have to carry on his legacy from his death, and carry on his dream, and fight negative accusations of his indiscretions and (she was) still able to go on and be a strong person,” said Flamer-Banks.

King also shocked many people by campaigning for the retrial and exoneration of James Earl Ray, her husband’s convicted killer. She felt it would be "a tragic irony" if the man accused of assassinating a champion of justice were denied his day in court. Ray died in 1998 of liver failure before a trial could take place.

In 1986 King convinced Congress to designate the third Monday in January as a federal holiday in remembrance of the birthday of Dr. King. She also founded the Martin Luther King Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change in Atlanta.

A luncheon, memorial slideshow, and moment of silence was held at SF State by the Africana Studies department on Wednesday.

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