Coretta Scott King, Human Rights Advocate, Suffers Debilitating Stroke

I second blogger Michael Burton when he asks, "What’s going on here? During the past week, civil rights leader Coretta Scott King suffered a stroke; gold star mother Cindy Sheehan had to abandon her vigil outside President Bush’s Texas hideaway when her mother suffered a stroke, and Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid suffered a stroke."
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Coretta Scott King is known worldwide as the widow of civil rights leader and Nobel Peace Prize winner Martin Luther King, Jr, assassinated in 1968. In her own right, though, Mrs. King is also a tireless, profoundly effective advocate for human rights.

For almost three decades, Mrs. King was President/CEO of the King Center she founded to foster her husband's core principles of nonviolent social change to fight the "triple evils of poverty, racism and war." She's been awarded 60 honorary degrees, authored 3 books and served in dozens of social justice organizations. She's led peace delegations around the world, and been advisor and support to hundreds of world spiritual and political leaders.

Four days after King's assassination in Memphis, this remarkable woman led 50,000 marchers through the streets of that city. And two months later, she led the massive Poor People's March to Washington on behalf of all races. All this while single-handedly raising four children.....

Coretta Scott King has undeservedly lived in the long shadow of her husband despite being valedictorian of her high school class and earning two college degrees as a young woman. I loved the quote from her that when she met him, he was looking for a wife, but she wasn't looking for a husband.

She continued to an interviewer, "I still resisted his overtures, but after he persisted, I had to pray about it...I had a dream, and in that dream, I was made to feel that I should allow myself to be open and stop fighting the relationship. That's what I did, and of course the rest is history. "

Today, Mrs King continues to fight passionately for human rights, particularly for "racial and economic justice, woman's and children's rights, gay and lesbian dignity, the needs of the poor and homeless, full-employment, health care, educational opportunities, nuclear disarmament and ecological sanity."

Take the time to read my Profile of Coretta Scott King, Human Rights Advocate. And say a prayer for improved health for Mrs. King. We desperately need her energy and compassion for people everywhere.