HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO THE LATE GREAT BEAUTIFUL & AMAZING, MRS. CORETTA SCOTT KING! #internationalblackwomenshistorymonth Coretta Scott King was an author, activist, civil rights leader and the wife of Martin Luther King Jr. As an advocate for African-American equality, she was a leader for the civil rights movement in the 1960s. Coretta met her husband while attending graduate school in Boston. They both became increasingly active in the civil rights movement. ACTIVISM: Coretta played a prominent role in the years after her husband’s assassination in 1968 when she took on the leadership of the struggle for racial equality herself and became active in the Women’s Movement. She founded the King Center and sought to make his birthday a national holiday and she succeeded in 1984. Coretta supported LGBT rights and was anti-apartheid. She became friends with many politicians. Her phone conversation with John F. Kennedy during the 1960 presidential election has been credited by historians for mobilizing African-American voters. LEGACY: Coretta died in 2006 and her funeral was attended by over 10,000 people, including four of five living U.S. presidents. She was inducted into the Alabama Women’s Hall of Fame, the National Women’s Hall of Fame and was the 1st African American to lie in state at the Georgia State Capitol. Coretta has been referred to as “First Lady of the Civil Rights Movement”.