I heard about her hospitalization yesterday, but waited to hear something a little more definite:
King was admitted to Piedmont Hospital on Tuesday, and the family issued a statement Wednesday saying she was resting comfortably. It expressed thanks for the “outpouring of care and support that’s being sent from around the world.”
Hospital spokeswoman Diana Lewis and the family wouldn’t discuss her illness, but the Rev. Joseph Lowery said King had suffered a stroke and was having trouble speaking.
King had canceled some recent public appearances, raising concerns about her health. Quoting unidentified friends, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported Wednesday that she was diagnosed with a heart malady this spring and has had several small strokes since then before the more serious one Tuesday.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,1280,-5216428,00.html
She’s 78, people. It won’t be long now.
Why is this news of particular portent, beyond the fact that this is the widow of Martin Luther King, Jr.?
Coretta Scott King has gone on public record as being for the legal, if not the human enfranchisement of gay people. Those gay people also include black gays. Black people.
Coretta King did not have to make this stand. However, it is clearly in step with what she believed he would have done at this time, despite his having to renounce the counsel and public connections with Bayard Rustin during his lifetime. She has also made principled stands regarding the First Gulf War and this current quagmire in Iraq. This is what I believe is the King legacy.
King’s sons, Dexter and Martin III, however, cannot be said to share their mother’s feelings. They have both said some pretty homophobic remarks in years past and been forced to apologize for them. Their sister Bernice King, who led a recent march against gay marriage, is the only one of the children who became a minister in the Baptist Church. The loss of their mother, however, will effectively make them leaders and promoters of their mother and father’s legacy and memory. And this is what make me very afraid.
The King family has been criticized in recent years for going strictly for the money in selling their famous relative’s likeness and legacy, presumably to any, if not the highest bidder. For example, Stanford University has most of King’s papers. Remember the commercial ad that showed King alone at the Lincoln Memorial, reading off the “I Had a Dream” speech? I seem to recall the consternation about how Martin King was being used after his death, with accompanying balanced commentary about how it was reasonable for the Kings to try to make money after years of being without it (and Martin’s fatherhood and his being a husband) during the civil rights era. While people understand that King died broke, the way he is being used for commercial purposes rankles them, because he is viewed as close as an American saint as nnyone in recent memory. And in the commercial use, I see the hands of the children pressuring, if not just Coretta.
I have a feeling that they are not doing much except be the children of Martin Luther King, Jr. His shadow must be really long and hard from which to emerge. Differing with him cold in the ground may upset things further in the years to come, not only in the family but in the public forum. I think Coretta acted as a curb, not much of one in some areas, but at least a curb to some of their feelings and actions. That will soon be gone.
So with these thoughts in mind, I am going to be very, very sorry when Coretta finally leaves us to go with Martin Luther King, Jr. She deserves the rest, but frankly I keep praying that we see both her and him again, as soon as humanly possible.
