Liberty Bell

The wife of Martin Luther King Jr. died late on Monday. At 78, Coretta had spent her life actively striving for justice and human dignity.

After Martin Luther King’s assassination, Coretta turned her life to preserve Dr. King’s legacy. The founding President, Chair, and Chief Executive Officer of The King Center, she is responsible for the first institute honoring Dr. King. Mrs. King also is resposible for the campaign that established Martin Luther King’s birthday as a National Holiday.

She is the first woman to deliver the class day address at Harvard, and the first woman to preach at a statutory service at St. Paul’s Cathedral in London.

Mrs. King has received honorary doctorates from over 60 colleges and universities, has authored three books and a nationally-syndicated column. She served on and helped found dozens of organizations including the Black Leadership Forum, the National Black Coalition for Voter Participation, and the Black Leadership Roundtable.

She met with many of the great leaders of the world, including the late Pope John Paul, the Dalai Lama, and Nelson Mandela.

Mrs. King, the world thanks you for your work.

You are missed.

Let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire. Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York. Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania! Let freedom ring from the snowcapped Rockies of Colorado! Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California! But not only that; let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia! Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee! Let freedom ring from every hill and every molehill of Mississippi. From every mountainside, let freedom ring. And when this happens, when we let freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old negro spiritual, “Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!”

– Martin Luther King, excerpt from his “I Have A Dream” speech