LITHONIA, Ga. – Ten thousand mourners – including four U.S. presidents, numerous members of Congress and many gray-haired veterans of the civil rights movement – said goodbye to Coretta Scott King on Tuesday, with President Bush saluting her as “a woman who worked to make our nation whole.”
The immense crowd filled the New Birth Missionary Baptist Church in this Atlanta suburb, as more than three dozen speakers at the funeral took turns remembering Martin Luther King Jr.’s widow, who worked to realize her husband’s dream of equality for nearly 40 years after his assassination. She died Jan. 30 at age 78 after battling ovarian cancer and the effects of a stroke.
The main eulogy was given by the youngest of the Kings’ four children, Bernice, a minister at the church. Stevie Wonder and Michael Bolton sang, giving soaring, gospel-infused performances.
The funeral at times turned political, with some speakers decrying the war in Iraq, the Bush administration’s eavesdropping program and the sluggish response to Hurricane Katrina in mostly black New Orleans.
Two hours after the funeral, King’s body was placed in a crypt near her husband’s tomb at the King Center, which she built to promote her husband’s memory.
Among comments from King’s funeral:
“Thank you, mother, for your incredible example of Christlike love and obedience.”
– The Rev. Bernice King,
youngest of the Kings’ children
“Coretta had every right to count the costs and step back from the struggle. But she decided that her children needed more than a safe home – they needed an America that upheld their equality and wrote their rights into law. And because this young mother and father were not intimidated, millions of children they would never meet are now living in a better, more welcoming country.”
– President Bush
“We can honor Dr. King’s sacrifice. We can help his children fulfill their legacy. … Every one of us are in a way the children of Martin Luther and Coretta Scott King.”
– Former President Clinton
“Our world is a kinder and gentler place because of Coretta Scott King.”
– Former President Bush
“We only have to recall the color of the faces in Louisiana, Alabama and Mississippi – those most devastated by Katrina – to know there are not yet equal opportunities for all Americans.”
– Former President Carter
“Who among us will join the freedom choir? Who among us will sing Coretta’s song with courage and conviction, to smother the cries of hatred, economic exploitation, poverty and political disenfranchisement? For whom does the bell toll? It tolls for you and for me.”
– Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin
“We owe something from this minute on, so that this gathering is not just another footnote on the pages of history.”
– Former U.S. poet laureate Maya Angelou, challenging the audience to carry on the Kings’ message of nonviolence
“For decades, she was the wind at our back as we worked to uphold civil rights laws.”
Massachusetts Sen. Ted Kennedy
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