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Gay Civil
Rights Advocate
Coretta
Scott King Dies
by
365Gay.com January 31, 2006
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Atlanta, Georgia -- Coretta
Scott King, the widow of civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr., died this
morning. She was 78.
Until she was disabled by a stroke last August King frequently spoke out, often
to the anger of some Black pastors, in favor of LGBT civil rights.
King called her critics "misinformed" and said that Martin Luther King's message
to the world was one of equality and inclusion.
In 2003, she invited the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force to take part in
observances of the 40th anniversary of the March on Washington and Dr. Martin
Luther King's "I Have A Dream" speech.
It was the first time that an LGBT rights group had been invited to a major
event of the African American community and drew the ire of some of the other
speakers.
King said her husband supported the quest for equality by gays and reminded her
critics that the 1963 March on Washington was organized by Bayard Rustin, an
openly gay man.
In March 2004, she told a university audience that same-sex marriage is a civil
rights issue and denounced a proposed amendment to the Constitution ban it.
"Gay and lesbian people have families, and their families should have legal
protection, whether by marriage or civil union," she said in a speech at The
Richard Stockton College in Pomona, New Jersey.
"A constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriages is a form of gay bashing
and it would do nothing at all to protect traditional marriages."
In her speech King also criticized a group of black pastors in her home state of
Georgia for backing a bill to amend that state's constitution to block gay and
lesbian couples from marrying.
Coretta Scott met Martin Luther King Jr. while she was studying at Boston's New
England Conservatory of Music.
They were married in June of 1953 and a year later moved to Montgomery, Alabama,
to take on the leadership of Dexter Avenue Baptist Church.
When Dr. King was assassinated she was a young widow with four young children to
raise.
The killing instantly thrust her to the forefront of the civil rights movement.
She took up her husband's mantle of social justice crusader speaking in forums
across this country and around the world.
Her death was announced by former Atlanta mayor Andrew Young. He said that
she will be buried beside her husband at the Martin Luther King Center for
NonViolent Social Change.
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