Presidents, Lawmakers, Civil Rights Workers, Family And Friends Gather To
Remember Coretta Scott King
An emotional farewell to Coretta Scott King took place Tuesday (Feb.
7) in Lithonia, Georgia. Four U.S. presidents, members of Congress and veterans
of the civil rights movement joined King’s four children and thousands of
mourners for the services at New Birth Missionary Baptist Church, where the
widow of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was remembered as a mother, wife and noble
force in working to make her husband’s dream a reality.
With President Bush sitting in the pulpit alongside former Presidents Bush,
Carter and Clinton, the funeral at times became political, as a number of
speakers took the opportunity to denounce the war in Iraq, the Bush
administration’s wire tapping program and its slow response to Hurricane
Katrina.
The Rev. Joseph Lowery, who co-founded the Southern Christian Leadership
Conference with Dr. King, got a raucous standing ovation when he said: "For war,
billions more, but no more for the poor" — quoting a line taken from a Stevie
Wonder song. Bush and his father could only shake their head during the
applause.
Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin — who spoke immediately after the president —
said Coretta Scott King spoke out against “the senselessness of war” with a
voice that was heard “from the tin-top roofs of Soweto to the bomb shelters of
Baghdad.”
Carter brought up the horrors of Hurricane Katrina, stating: “We only have to
recall the color of the faces of those in Louisiana, Alabama and Mississippi” to
know that inequality exists. He also noted that the Kings were at one time
“victims of secret government wiretapping” – referencing Bush's domestic spying
program.
Clinton, who received the loudest and longest ovation from the gatherers,
tried to remind folks that this day was not about politics. Pointing to King’s
coffin topped with flowers, he said: “I don’t want us to forget that there’s a
woman in there… A real woman who lived and breathed and got angry and got hurt
and had dreams and disappointments.”
Other speakers during the nearly six-hour service included Sen. Edward
Kennedy (D-Mass), Dorothy Height of the National Council of Negro Women, Rep
John Conyers (D-Mich) and poet Maya Angelou, who called Coretta Scott King "a
study in serenity" and challenged the audience to carry on the King message of
nonviolence. Stevie Wonder sang an emotional rendition of “Eye on the Sparrow.”
King’s youngest daughter Bernice - a minister at New Birth who was just 5 when
her father was assassinated - delivered the main eulogy.
"Thank you, mother, for your incredible example of Christ-like love and
obedience," she said calmly at the end of her fiery sermon.
King’s incredibly beautiful and heart rending funeral program, which may be
viewed and
downloaded HERE, began with a quote from Dr. King about his wife. It
read: “I came to see the real meaning of that rather trite statement: ‘A wife
can either make or break a husband.’ Coretta proved to be that type of wife with
qualities to make a husband when he could’ve been so easily broken.”
As more than three dozen speakers took the podium to remember King, hundreds
of mourners stood outside the church, unable to get into the packed service.
Lines for the funeral began forming before 3 a.m.
King's body was to be placed in a crypt next to her husband's tomb at the
King Center, which she built to promote his legacy. The crypt is inscribed with
a passage from First Corinthians: "And now abide Faith, Hope, Love, These
Three; but the greatest of these is Love."
