Coretta Scott King, the widow of slain civil-rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., died on Jan. 30, according to CNN. She was 78.
Coretta King suffered a stroke and a mild heart attack last August. She was receiving further medical treatment in California in her rehabilitation.
Born in Marion, Ala., on April 27, 1927, Coretta Scott eventually received a B.A. in music and education at Antioch College in Ohio. She then studied concert singing at the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston, Massachusetts. While there, she met a theology student at Boston University named Martin Luther King Jr. They married on June 18, 1953, in her hometown.
After an assassin’s bullet killed her husband in Memphis in 1968, Coretta Scott King channeled her grief by maintaining her husband’s legacy. She spoke out ‘on behalf of racial and economic justice, women’s and children’s rights, gay and lesbian dignity, religious freedom, the needs of the poor and homeless, full employment, healthcare, educational opportunities, nuclear disarmament and ecological sanity,’ according to her biography on The King Center’s Web site.
Poet Maya Angelou remembered her friend Coretta Scott King as a devoted wife, loving mother and a model citizen. ‘It’s a bleak morning for me and for many people and yet it’s a great morning because we have a chance to look at her and see what she did and who she was,’ Angelou told Good Morning America Jan. 31, according to ABC News.