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NWPC Mourns Passing of Civil Rights Leader
Tuesday, January 31, 2006
Today, the National Women’s Political Caucus (NWPC) mourns the passing of Coretta Scott King. Mrs. King was a woman of great dignity and courage who proudly continued the work and preserved the legacy of her late husband, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
Coretta Scott King was the founder of the King Center in Atlanta and one of the leaders of the movement to have Dr. King’s birthday designated as a national holiday. Yet Coretta Scott King has her own history of activism and leadership to celebrate.
She was an early advocate for women’s equality and often spoke and appeared at events promoting political participation for women, including NWPC. Mrs. King viewed women’s rights as indivisible from the larger civil rights movement, and was actively engaged until the very end of her life in global movements for peace and social justice.
When many icons of the civil rights movement succumbed to political pressure to renounce or reconsider the movement’s principles, she remained a persistent and eloquent advocate for equality for all Americans. Mrs. King steadfastly repudiated any attempts to subvert the ideals of justice and equality, by appropriating the language of the civil rights movements to reverse its gains, as the opponents of affirmative action have done.