Courageous Coretta King

Coretta Scott King was a full peer and partner to her more well known husband, Martin.   She tells her story in a 2017 book, My Life, My Love, My Legacy.  Loretta describes herself in this way as her life began in Alabama:  "a child born in Nowhere, USA, into a race that was virtually disqualified from humanity and a gender condemned to silence."  But God turned her life around; at the end of her life, she became a respected citizen of the world, a full human being, and an effective woman leader for nonviolent social change.

First, two quotations:

"Too often, we respond by doing nothing at all and resign ourselves to live with oppression, which is wrong because, as Martin said,"non-cooperation with evil is as much a moral obligation as cooperation with good."  Or oppose/expose oppression and do justice.  "Or we meet violence with violence, creating more social problems and leaving a bitter legacy for the next generation."  Both Haiti and the USA were born in violence and throughout history violence has been a tragic part of each nation's life.  "Martin's ideology demanded that we confront violence in faith and love, which sometimes means moving directly into the line of fire.  That is a call to pick up the Cross of Jesus, to follow him and be prepared to die."

The other quotation is about India's nonviolent achieving of Independence.:

"The Mountbattens [British] and Nehru [Indian] could have been bitter enemies, yet they remained friends, because of Gandhi's policy of love and nonviolence, in which the main objective and ideal aftermath of a nonviolent revolution is reconciliation and the creation of the Beloved Community. . . . a new relationship of friendship between the oppressed and the oppressor."

CSK and MLK were genuine partners not only in marriage but also in ministry---civil rights movement and human rights, in love, nonviolence, reconciliation and the Beloved Community.  Also in courage and commitment.  Without Loretta as a full partner, Martin wouldn't have made it.  Martin correctly said of Coretta "If I had not had a wife with the fortitude, strength, and calmness of Loretta, I could not have withstood the ordeals and tensions."

Though rarely recognized as such, Loretta was Martin's peer and full partner in ministry.  After you read her memoir, you will understand why I write this glowing praise.