CIVIL RIGHTS

Funeral Fit For A King

Yesterday, the nation bid farewell to Coretta Scott King, the first lady of civil rights and social justice in America. Ten thousand mourners attended her funeral, which featured speakers encouraging the activism that characterized the life of King and her husband, the late Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. "You want to treat our friend Coretta like a role model? Then model her behavior," said President Bill Clinton during his remarks. Throughout her life, King fought with unyielding courage for equality, justice, and peace. "You cannot believe in peace at home and not believe in international peace," King once told her friends. As a nation, we must remember the whole legacy of King, not just the parts that are politically convenient. "We will now celebrate Coretta Scott King as though the civil rights movement is finished and the mission has been accomplished, but the work is not done," said Bruce Gordon, president of the NAACP. King never fell victim to complacency in the fight for progress.

THE PEACE ACTIVIST: King was an international figure with a lifelong commitment to nonviolence. Her anti-war views were rooted in her religious beliefs. King spoke at an anti-war rally in Madison Square Garden in 1965, before her husband took his public stand against the Vietnam War. In 1964, when Rev. King won the Nobel Peace Prize, King told her husband many times, "I think there is a role you must play in achieving world peace, and I will be so glad when the time comes when you can assume that role." Even after Rev. King's assassination, King continued to speak out for peace, voicing opposition in 2003 to the U.S. invasion of Iraq: "A war with Iraq will increase anti-American sentiment, create more terrorists, and drain as much as 200 billion taxpayer dollars, which should be invested in human development here in America." She urged President Bush to emulate her late husband's dedication to peace and nonviolence, instructing him that "war is a poor chisel for carving out peaceful tomorrows."

THE CIVIL RIGHTS ACTIVIST: King's work on civil rights was closely tied to her international peace work. "She [King] was far more politically aware than her husband was at that time when they met," said Digby Diehl, a writer who collaborated with King on her memoirs. One month after Rev. King's murder, King joined Southern Christian Leadership Council officials at the Poor People's Campaign in Memphis, an event planned earlier by her husband. She was arrested for fighting South African apartheid in 1985, and well into her 70s, King traveled the globe speaking against injustice and advocating freedom, gay rights, opportunity, nuclear disarmament, and the fight against AIDS. "From the first, I had been determined to get ahead, not just for myself, but to do something for my people and for all people," wrote King in her 1969 autobiography.

HONORING KING'S IDEALS: Yesterday at King's funeral, Rev. Joseph Lowery -- the "dean of the civil rights movement" -- honored King's life by speaking out against war and poverty: "We know now there were no weapons of mass destruction over there. But Coretta knew and we know that there are weapons of misdirection right down here. Millions without health insurance. Poverty abounds. For war billions more but no more for the poor." Lowery's remarks were greeted by a long standing ovation, but they made Bush "squirm in his seat." Former President Jimmy Carter added, "We only have to recall the color of the faces of those in Louisiana, Alabama and Mississippi" to know that inequality exists and that it "was difficult for them [the Kings] personally with the civil liberties of both husband and wife violated, and they became the targets of secret government wiretapping and other surveillance." Both Lowery and Carter were sharply criticized by the right-wing, a group that would never mix politics and religion. The National Review's Kate O'Beirne said on MSBNC's Hardball last night, "Liberals don't seem to be able to keep politics away from funerals" and called Carter's remarks a "cheap political shot." Yet political activism is inextricably tied to King's legacy. The day before her husband was buried, King led a civil rights march of 50,000 people. Rev. King actually expected his political, civil rights, and peace work to be discussed at his funeral: "I'd like somebody to mention that day [at my funeral], that Martin Luther King, Jr., tried to give his life serving others. ... I want you to say that day, that I tried to be right on the war question." King's funeral yesterday was characterized by an activist spirit, which she had until the end of her life. "There are a lot of people who would love to relegate me to a symbolic figure," she said. "I have never been just a symbol of anything. I am a thinker. I have strong beliefs."

THE UNFINISHED FIGHT: As King knew all too well, her fight is not over. Social, economic, racial, and ethnic inequalities persist. Nationwide, African-Americans continue to have higher death rates from chronic diseases than any other U.S. racial or ethnic group. People with lower incomes continue to have worse health. Nearly 25 percent of African-Americans and 22 percent of Latinos live in poverty and states continue to enact laws that disenfranchise minority voters. "I'm concerned that people don't take her passing as an opportunity to further antique the causes that she [King] and her husband and others stood for,' said Theodore M. Shaw, president of the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund. "Anybody who thinks that work is over is either terribly ignorant or willfully blind."