Obama Statement on the Death of Coretta Scott King
Tuesday, January 31, 2006
Printable FormatFOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Washington Contact: Robert Gibbs or Tommy Vietor, (202) 228-5511
Illinois Contact: Julian Green (312) 886-3506
Date: January 31, 2006
Obama Statement on the Death of Coretta Scott King
WASHINGTON - U.S. Senator Barack Obama (D-IL) today introduced the following statement on the death of Coretta Scott King:
When I think about Coretta Scott King, I think about the little girl who walked five miles to school on those rural Alabama roads and felt the heat of racism each day she passed the doors of the whites-only school so much closer to home.
It didn't matter, because she studied and succeeded and excelled past most of her classmates - black and white - earning a college degree and an acceptance to a prestigious graduate school up north.
And one day she met a young preacher from Atlanta, and she fell in love with him. And he told her his dreams. And she believed in them. And she decided she would help him make them real - not just as a wife or a friend, but as a partner in freedom's cause.
Over the next years, Coretta Scott King did that in so many ways we can't even imagine - raising a family, marching through streets, inspiring through song, leading through speech, even dodging the countless attempts on her family's life.
When one of those attempts finally took her love from this world, she made the selfless decision to carry on. With no time to cry or mourn, to wallow in anger or vengeance, Coretta Scott King took to the streets just four days after the assassination and lead 50,000 through the streets of Memphis in a march for the kind of justice that her husband gave his life for.
She spent the rest of her time here marching for that same justice - leading the King Center for Nonviolent Social Change in Atlanta and spreading her family's message of hope to every corner of this world.
Shortly after Martin Luther King Jr. died, Coretta said that 'When you are willing to make sacrifices for a great cause, you will never be alone, because you will have divine companionship and the support of good people.'
Coretta Scott King died in her sleep last night, but she was certainly not alone. She was joined by the companionship and support of a loving family and a grateful nation - inspired by her cause, dedicated to her work, and mournful of her passing. My thoughts and condolences today are with her children, and may she and her husband now rest together in eternal peace.