There are many heroes of the civil rights movement we’ve all heard discussed: Malcom X, Thurgood Marshall, Rosa Parks and, of course, Martin Luther King, Jr. We like to focus on the major names we know, but one particular person deserves a little more credit for her civil rights advocacy, and that is Coretta Scott King—Martin Luther’s wife.
Though often mentioned as just an asterisk to her husband’s work, Coretta was nonetheless a fierce and prominent civil rights leader in her own standing with a career that lasted almost half a century.
Coretta began as a talented singer, hoping to one day become a classical performer, but she would ultimately have to put this dream aside in order to devote herself to the civil rights cause. She would incorporate singing and music into her demonstrations for the rest of her life as a tool for uniting crowds and encouraging protestors.
When Coretta made the switch over to activism, she filled a position behind Martin for a few years, often writing letters and making important calls on his behalf (her contacts included John and Bobby Kennedy, as well as governors from all over the country).
During this time, Coretta struggled with constant threats made to their home phone number, the scrutiny of FBI investigations on her and Martin’s marital happiness (in an attempt to divide the two and pull Martin down) and even a house-bombing while she was home with a few friends and her new baby.
It was often difficult for Coretta to keep up as a mother with her husband so often on the road, but she managed to raise their four children for a large part on her own—when Martin was assassinated in 1968, their oldest child Yolanda was twelve. Nonetheless, Coretta managed to hold the family together while also shifting into higher leadership positions within the movement, even despite the continued threat posed to her and her children.
Over the next four decades, Coretta expanded her advocacy to LGBTQ+ rights and apartheid laws abroad. She met with Winnie Mandela in South Africa in 1986 and often demonstrated outside American embassies, despite threats of arrest (which happened once; she and three of her children were taken in together after protesting for anti-apartheid sanctions in DC).
Coretta would often say to other civil rights leaders that the growing gay and lesbian coalition deserved a place at their table just as much as anyone, despite some misgivings in the early 1980s. In her mind, they were all there to fight bigotry and receive recognition for their rights and human dignity.
Coretta once reflected on the nature of gender roles within the civil rights movement, saying in a 1966 interview with New Lady magazine that “not enough attention has been focused on the roles played by women in the struggle. By and large, men have formed the leadership in the civil rights struggle but…women have been the backbone of the whole civil rights movement.”
While the contributions of MLK and other commonly known civil rights leaders cannot be overstated, it’s still important for us to notice the less often recognized, though no less influential, civil rights heroes who worked tirelessly to make our country a safer and more just place for all people.