CORETTA SCOTT KING

When Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated on April 4, 1968, few would have thought that his widow would devote her life to his work. Now, 37 years later, my guest Mrs. Coretta Scott King is one of the prominent leaders behind the Civil Rights Movement. Mrs. King continues to devote her time to the Martin Luther King Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change. As a living memorial to her husband’s life and dream, there have been many movements legitimate protesting social injustice since Martin Luther King Jr. has been assassinated. But many of them have failed to pick up the spirit that he had; a true non violent spirit.
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RAS: Robert H. Schuller
CSK: Coretta Scott King

RHS:
Today I’m so honored to have her back, Coretta Scott King. Part of our 50th anniversary celebration. April 27, which will be here very soon, will mark Mrs. King’s 78th birthday and she’ll join the list of American’s that are 78. Why did you accept our invitation? We’re so grateful.

CSK:
Well I’m certainly honored to be invited back a second time. You don’t always get a second chance. And secondly I came because of the respect that I have for the leadership that you have given to this congregation and this Hour of Power. And I am always inspired by this service and I watch it whenever I’m in town. And I can watch it. I know when it comes on in Atlanta. It doesn’t come on the same time in other places. So I watch you and your son on a weekly basis and I’m always inspired and uplifted and the things that you’re doing and the message that is being carried throughout the world is something that’s so desperately needed. And thank you.

RHS:
Wow. Your husband; what a remarkable man. Checking his life and his sacrifice from the age of 78, gives you even a deeper perspective. Tell us about that.

CSK:
Martin Luther King Jr. was first of all a minister of the gospel of Jesus Christ and he always said that he wanted to be.. just wanted to be a great pastor. That’s all he wanted to be. But he became a civil and human rights activist but his philosophy of nonviolence was based on his.. he said his motivation. He got an inspiration from Jesus Christ and his techniques from Mohandas K. Gandhi. So he took that philosophy and developed it, I say, was into western style and he changed America for the better. Martin Luther King Jr. was a humble man but he was a man who was obedient to God’s will and purpose for his life, I believe. And..
RHS:
A divine drive.

CSK:
Yes. And I feel that God used him in an extraordinary way because he was completely obedient, I think, to God’s will.

RHS:
Now you know, no woman, no widow of an assassinated hero ever went through greater pain than you did. Now how has your faith carried you through it from the moment that the news reached you that he was shot, that he was dead, until today. Your faith.

CSK:
I always believed as.. from a youngster that there was a purpose for my life and that there’s a purpose for each one of our lives and we have to seek that purpose and in the process of getting married to Martin Luther King Jr. and the movement getting started, I felt that that was my purpose had been discovered to be the wife of a minister because I believed that a minister’s wife should be just as committed as her husband. And feeling that this was my purpose to be at the side of Martin Luther King Jr. through whatever trials and tribulations and struggles that we endured was part of God’s will for me. And so my faith was continually increased as I thought about what my purpose was. This is my purpose so that God, if God calls you to do something, I think that He will help you to do it; He will give you the strength, the courage and the faith to endure. And this is what I feel He has done for me.

RHS:
Your children, the greatest compliment and affirmation of your faith and the faith of their father, are the children. Tell me what they’re doing.

CSK:
Well my eldest daughter, my firstborn is here with me today. She just stood, Yolanda. And she was trained as an actress and she has done many films, some films and plays and she speaks as well. So her message today is a combination of the spoken word and the theatrical part of that as well. She also has a company called Higher Ground that produces plays.

RHS:
Good.

CSK:
My second child is a son, Martin Luther King the third. He is the president and CEO of the King Center, the Martin Luther King Center which I founded back in 1968. And Dexter Scott King is the Chairman of the Board of the King Center. And my youngest daughter and child is Bernice Alberteen King and she is a preacher.

RHS:
Yeah, the great preacher. You got a great reputation as a preacher.

CSK:
Yes, she’s a great preacher and very anointed. And she does a lot of preaching and speaking and her major interest is young people and she connects very well with young people.

RHS:
Is she getting the young to the faith?

CSK:
I think that she is.

RHS: It’s a tremendous challenge for all young people, whatever they’re race.

CSK:
There’s a lot to be done and I think she will be doing even more.

RHS:
Now Coretta, I see a couple books here. Haven’t had a chance to talk to you about them but tell us about these two books. Here’s “A Call to Conscience.”

CSK:
Is a book of speeches; selected speeches of Martin Luther King Jr. and some people think he only did one speech and that’s “I Have a Dream.” But he did many speeches and this is just a small sampling of his great speeches. It’s called landmark speeches of Martin Luther King Jr. but they are speeches that were done on special historic occasions and they have introductions by various people who knew him in his life. For instance, Dorothy Height, Dr. Dorothy Height does the introduction for the “I Have a Dream” speech because she was at the March on Washington.

RHS:
Yeah.

CSK:
Not a whole lot of people probably left who were on the platform at the March on Washington. And I would recommend this book, “A Call to Conscience”, very highly to anyone who wants to understand more about Martin Luther King Jr. and his speeches and this is a book of sermons, “A Knock at Midnight.” Martin was first of all a preacher. And so you need to get this and there’s a lot of inspiration in these messages and direction that people can get for their lives.